Aggregated media rights platform with media item identification across media sharing platforms

ABSTRACT

In one embodiment, a processing device receives a request to claim ownership of a first hosted media item on a first media sharing platform, wherein the request is received from a rights holder that holds one or more rights to a claimed media item that is incorporated into the first hosted media item. The processing device adds an indicator of the ownership of the rights holder to a first entry for the first hosted media item in a data store. The processing device determines that a second hosted media item having a threshold similarity to the first hosted media item is hosted by a second media sharing platform. The processing device automatically adds an indicator of the ownership of the rights holder to a second entry for the second hosted media item without receiving a separate request to claim ownership of the second hosted media item.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

This patent application claims the benefit under 35 U.S.C. § 119(e) ofU.S. Provisional Application No. 62/811,467, filed Feb. 27, 2019, whichis herein incorporated by reference.

TECHNICAL FIELD

This disclosure relates to the field of media content identification,and in particular to an aggregated services platform that identifiesmedia items across multiple online service providers (OSPs) and performsactions associated with media items across multiple OSPs.

BACKGROUND

There are many different OSPs that provide video hosting services. Avideo hosting service is a website or software that allows users toupload and distribute their own user generated content (UGC) and/orprofessionally generated content, which is often in the form of usergenerated video clips. Additionally, OSPs may provide file hostingservices, image hosting services and/or social network services, whichmay also support video sharing. These and other services are referred tocollectively as media sharing platforms herein. A few examples of themany OSPs that host video content and/or UGC include YouTube®,Facebook®, Vimeo®, Dailymotion®, Flickr®, and Twitch®.

Traditionally, users manually generate user accounts with each of thedifferent OSPs to which they wish to upload content, and then separatelyupload content to each of the OSPs. Each of the OSPs then individuallynegotiates agreements with rights holders with regards to hosting andmonetizing content. Additionally, each of the OSPs individuallynegotiates agreements with advertisers with respect to monetizingcontent. Rights holders and advertisers then receive disparate reportsfrom the various OSPs with regards to content served, ads served,revenue earned, and so forth. Each OSP has its own data format andgenerates reports for rights holders with some periodicity that may notcorrespond to the periodicity at which other OSPs generate reports.Accordingly, it can be difficult for rights holders to compare thereports from disparate OSPs to assess those OSPs. Furthermore, when arights holder identifies content that they wish to be removed from OSPs,they need to separately contact each of the OSPs to request that thecontent be removed from those OSPs.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The present disclosure will be understood more fully from the detaileddescription given below and from the accompanying drawings of variousembodiments of the present disclosure, which, however, should not betaken to limit the present disclosure to the specific embodiments, butare for explanation and understanding only.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating an aggregated media rightsplatform, in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 2 is a flow diagram illustrating a method for identifying andresolving a rights conflict between rights holders to a claimed mediaitem, according to an embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a flow diagram illustrating another method for identifying andresolving a rights conflict between rights holders to a claimed mediaitem, according to an embodiment.

FIG. 4A is a flow diagram illustrating a method for automaticallyresolving a rights conflict between rights holders to a claimed mediaitem, according to an embodiment.

FIG. 4B is another flow diagram illustrating a method for automaticallyresolving a rights conflict between rights holders to a claimed mediaitem, according to an embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a flow diagram illustrating a method for determining a set ofactions permitted for hosted media items that comprise a claimed mediaitem, according to an embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a flow diagram illustrating a method for determining matchesbetween claimed media items, according to an embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a flow diagram illustrating a method for generating a musicsynchronization license, according to an embodiment.

FIG. 8A is a flow diagram illustrating a method for determining sets ofactions permitted for hosted media items, according to an embodiment.

FIG. 8B is a flow diagram illustrating another method for determiningsets of actions permitted for hosted media items, according to anembodiment.

FIG. 8C is a flow diagram illustrating a method for grouping hostedmedia items, according to an embodiment.

FIG. 9A is a flow diagram illustrating a method for determining rightfulownership of hosted media items, according to an embodiment,

FIG. 9B is a flow diagram illustrating a method for automaticallyuploading content to media sharing platforms, according to anembodiment.

FIG. 10 is a flow diagram illustrating a method for determining sets ofactions permissible for hosted media items, according to an embodiment.

FIG. 11A is a flow diagram illustrating a method for determining anaction to be performed for a hosted media item to be viewed by a viewer,according to an embodiment.

FIG. 11B is a flow diagram illustrating another method for determiningan action to be performed for a hosted media item to be viewed by aviewer, according to an embodiment.

FIG. 12A is a flow diagram illustrating a method for performing actionsto hosted media items across multiple media sharing platforms, accordingto an embodiment.

FIG. 12B is a flow diagram illustrating another method for performingactions to hosted media items across multiple media sharing platforms,according to an embodiment.

FIG. 13A is a flow diagram illustrating a method for performing actionsto covers of claimed media items across multiple media sharingplatforms, according to an embodiment,

FIG. 13B is a flow diagram illustrating a method for performing actionsto media items sharing properties across multiple media sharingplatforms, according to an embodiment.

FIG. 14 is a flow diagram illustrating a method for reporting tailoredinformation to different OSPs and rights holders, according to anembodiment.

FIG. 15 is a flow diagram illustrating a method for delivering contentto media sharing platforms, according to an embodiment.

FIG. 16 is a flow diagram illustrating another method for deliveringcontent to media sharing platforms, according to an embodiment.

FIG. 17 is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary computer systemthat hosts an aggregated media rights platform, according to anembodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Embodiments are described with regards to an aggregated media rightsplatform. The aggregated media rights platform interfaces with rightsholders and media aggregators to determine the sets of rights associatedwith claimed media items. In embodiments, the aggregated media rightsplatform determines sets of rights associated with music and/or withvideos. Such rights may include publishing rights, composition rights,sound recording rights, performance rights, and so on for one or moreterritories, one or more media sharing platforms, etc. The aggregatedmedia rights platform makes sure that all rights to a claimed media itemare accounted for, and then determines one or more actions that arepermitted by all of the rights holders. The aggregated media rightsplatform may then communicate such actions to multiple different mediasharing platforms that include hosted media items that incorporate theclaimed media items (e,g., videos that include claimed songs). Theaggregated media rights platform is able to take actions that areleveraged across multiple media sharing platforms. For example, a rightsholder may request an action to be performed with respect to media itemson a first media sharing platform, and that same action mayautomatically be performed for similar media items on other mediasharing platforms.

The aggregated media rights platform may additionally determine whenmultiple different parties have claimed the same rights to a claimedmedia item. For example, the aggregated media rights platform maydetermine that two different publishers have claimed the publishingrights for the same song in the same territory. When a rights conflictis identified, the aggregated media rights platform may perform actionsto resolve the conflict. The aggregated media rights platform mayperform one or more automated actions to resolve the rights conflict inan automated fashion without any input from either rights holder in someembodiments. For example, the aggregated media rights platform maydetermine that a similar rights conflict between the same two partieswas resolved in favor of a particular rights holder, may determine thatthe facts associated with a current rights conflict align with facts ofthe already resolved rights conflict, and may automatically resolve thecurrent rights conflict in the same manner that the other rightsconflict between the two parties was resolved.

In embodiments, the aggregated media rights platform may identify, foreach hosted media item hosted by multiple different media sharingplatforms, the claimed media items that are incorporated into the hostedmedia items. A claimed media item may be a copyrighted media item suchas a song. A hosted media item may be, for example, user generatedcontent (e.g., user generated videos), which may incorporate one or moreclaimed media items. Additionally, the aggregated media rights platformmay compare digital fingerprints of hosted media items to digitalfingerprints of other hosted media items to identify copies of the samehosted media items across media sharing platforms. The aggregated mediarights platform may then enable rights holders to select actions toperform for a particular hosted media item on multiple different mediasharing platforms. For example, a user may select to take down a hostedmedia item from a first media sharing platform. The aggregated mediarights platform may then identify copies of that hosted media item onother media sharing platforms, and may take that hosted media item downfrom each of the other media sharing platforms automatically.

Embodiments provide multiple advantages over existing systems. To date,different media sharing platforms each manage their own content.However, there is no way presently to track or manage hosted media itemsacross multiple different media sharing platforms, much less to do so inan automated fashion. Embodiments enable rights holders to provide datafeeds of their rights, and the aggregated media rights platformreceives, parses, and records the rights to claimed media items fromeach of the feeds. The aggregated media rights platform additionallyreceives feeds of hosted media items from multiple different mediasharing platforms. The aggregated media rights platform may compare allrights claims against all other rights claims, may compare hosted mediaitems to claimed media items, and may compare hosted media items toother hosted media items, all across multiple rights holders andmultiple media sharing platforms. Rights holders may then requestactions to be taken against one or more hosted media items across manydifferent media sharing platforms with the click of a button.

Embodiments make it easier, less resource intensive, and take less timefor rights holders to manage their rights to media on many differentmedia sharing platforms (e.g., OSPs). Additionally, embodiments reducethe amount of network bandwidth, amount of processor resources, and soon used to track and manage rights to claimed media items and hostedmedia items by providing a single service that contains all of thenecessary data for the claimed media items, the hosted media items, andthe relationships there between. Thus, rather than separately sendingtake down requests to each media sharing platform hosting a particularmedia item, for example, a rights holder may send a single take downrequest to the aggregated media rights platform, which may then ensurethat the offending media item is taken down from all media sharingplatforms.

Today many pieces of content are available to be viewed both offline andonline through a diverse collection of media sharing platforms. In onecommon case, a media sharing platform will monetize a hosted media itemduring the presentation of the hosted media item to the end user.Monetization of hosted media items includes displaying other contentsuch as advertisements and/or promotional media alongside, before, orafter presenting the hosted media item. Interested parties, such as amedia sharing platform, a user uploading a hosted media item, a rightsholder (e.g., an artist, publisher, label, studio, etc.) may createaccounts with an aggregated media rights platform to manage theircontent across multiple territories and/or multiple media sharingplatforms.

Popularity of media sharing platforms is ever increasing. The user basesfor popular media sharing platforms have already expanded to over abillion users. An active set of these users is uploading user generatedcontent. User generated content (UGC) may include videos thatincorporate claimed media items, a cover of the work of another that issubject to copyright protections (e.g., audio known works), the lyricsof the work of another that is subject to copyright protection, and soon. Every new instance of user generated content generally should beanalyzed for copyright compliance against existing known works (claimedmedia items) that have been registered for protection and/or ownership.An aggregated media rights platform can receive billions of transactionseach and every month, where each transaction involves the analysis of ahosted media item to determine whether that hosted media itemincorporates portions of one or more claimed media items (i.e. portionsof known works).

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a network environment 100including an aggregated media rights platform 170, in which embodimentsof the present disclosure. In one embodiment, network environment 100includes one or more rights holder computing devices 101A-101N, one ormore rights holder computing devices 104A-M, a media aggregatorcomputing device 103, a server computing device 150. and multiple onlineservice provider (OSP) computing devices 105A-Z. Any number of computingdevices 101A-N, 103, 105A-Z can communicate with server computing device150 through a network (not shown). Additionally, rights holder computingdevices 104A-M may communicate with media aggregator computing device103 via the network or another network. The network can include a localarea network (LAN), a wireless network, a telephone network, a mobilecommunications network, a wide area network (WAN) (e.g., such as theInternet) and/or similar communication system. The network can includeany number of networking and computing devices such as wired andwireless devices.

The computing devices 101A-N, 104A-M, 103, 150, 105A-Z may include oneor more physical machines and/or virtual machines hosted by physicalmachines. The physical machines may include rackmount servers, desktopcomputers, and/or other computing devices. In one embodiment, any of thecomputing devices 101A-N, 104A-M, 103, 150, 145A-Z can include a virtualmachine managed and provided by a cloud provider system. Each virtualmachine offered by a cloud service provider may be hosted on a physicalmachine configured as part of a cloud. Such physical machines are oftenlocated in a data center. The cloud provider system and cloud may beprovided as an infrastructure as a service (IaaS) layer. One example ofsuch a cloud is Amazon's® Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2®).

Server computing device 150 may include or be connected to a mediarights data store 152 and a hosted media data store 156. The mediarights data store 152 and hosted media data store 156 may each bearranged as a database, a data store service, or other data arrangement.Server computing device 150 may additionally include or be connected toa user account data store and/or other data stores, each of which may bedatabase implementations in some embodiments. In embodiments, the mediarights data store 152, hosted media data store 156 and/or other datastores may be implemented using a data storage service, such as AmazonS3®. The media rights data store 152 may store entries for claimed mediaitems 172. Each entry (claimed media item 172) in the media rights datastore 152 may include metadata associated with a claimed media item, oneor more rights claims to the claimed media item, one or more digitalfingerprints of the claimed media item and/or one or more contentmanagement rules for the claimed media item. The metadata may includedata describing the claimed media items such as title, artist, albumname, additional descriptive elements, international sound recordingcode (ISRC), and so on. The rights claims, digital fingerprints and/orcontent management rules may also be metadata in embodiments. The hostedmedia data store 156 may store entries for hosted media items 176 thatare hosted on one or more media sharing platform 175A-Z. Each entry(hosted media item 176) may include metadata associated with a hostedmedia item, one or more digital fingerprints of the hosted media item,an identification of a user account that uploaded the hosted media item,an indication of a media sharing platform 175A-Z hosting the hostedmedia item, an identification of one or more claimed media itemsincorporated into the hosted media item, an identification of one ormore other hosted media items that are copies of the hosted media item,and/or other information.

Rights holder computing devices 101A-N each provide a feed of claimedmedia items associated with a particular rights holder. Different rightsfeeds may include data in different formats. Claimed media ingestionmodule 180 may modify data from rights feeds and normalize the dataacross rights feeds. Examples of rights holders include labels, artists,publishers, studios, and so on. The feed may be a live stream of data,or may be a continuous or periodic stream of data. Each feed of claimedmedia items may include data for one or more claimed media items towhich a particular rights holder is making a rights claim. A rightsclaim for a claimed media item may include a copy of the media itemand/or a digital fingerprint of the media item. A rights claim may alsoinclude a set of rights associated with the claimed media item, whichmay identify a type of right (e,g., a publishing right, a compositionright, a sound recording right, a performance right, etc.), one or moreterritories to which the right applies (e.g., the U.S., France, Germany,Japan, China, etc.), one or more media sharing platforms to which theright applies (e.g., YouTube, Facebook, Daily Motion, etc.), and/or oneor more time periods for which the right applies. A rights claim mayadditionally include a content management rule associated with theclaimed media item. The content management rule indicates one or moreactions that are permitted and/or that are not permitted for the claimedmedia item. Some common content management rules include rules tomonetize a claimed media item (e.g., via advertising revenue), rules toprohibit or block posting of the claimed media item, rules to limitposting of the claimed media item (e.g., to particular territoriesand/or media sharing platforms), rules to limit the type of videos thatclaimed audio media items can be posted with, rules to limit the type ofaudio that can be attached to claimed video media items, rules to trackviews (or other consumption) of claimed media items, and so on. Manydifferent types of content management rules are possible. If a contentmanagement rule is not provided, then a default content management rulemay be applied. Each rights holder may set up their own distinct contentmanagement rules in embodiments.

The media item may be audio (e.g., a song or album), a video, or otherwork that contains an audio portion. The media item may be a file (e.g.,an audio file having a format such as WAV, RIFF, AU, FLAC, ALAC, MPEG-4,MP3, Opus, Vorbis, AAC, ATRAC, WMA, and so on, or a video file having aformat such as WebM, Flash Video, F4V, Vob, Ogg, Dirac, AVI, QuickTimeFile Format, Windows Media Video, MPEG-4, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, M4V, SVI, MP4,FLV, and so on). The claimed media item may be provided to servercomputing device 150 as a single file or multiple files (e.g., as aportion of a larger file). Alternatively, one or more digitalfingerprints (e.g., sets of features) of the claimed media item may begenerated and provided to aggregated media rights platform 170. In oneembodiment, a digital fingerprint generator divides a claimed media iteminto multiple segments, and one or more segments (or a digitalfingerprint of one or more segments) are sent to server computing device150. Alternatively, a digital fingerprint of the claimed media item maybe determined from the whole of the claimed media item and transmittedto the server computing device 150.

The term digital fingerprint is often used in the singular herein.However, it should be understood that this term included embodiments inwhich a digital fingerprint may be considered a sequence of smallerdigital fingerprints of segments of a media item. For example, an audiomedia item having a length of 1 minute may have a distinct set offeatures (e.g., a feature vector) for each 10 millisecond segment (orother lengths of equal or differing size) of the 1 minute audio mediaitem, each of which could be considered a distinct digital fingerprint,and/or any number of which may be combined into a digital fingerprint ofa larger segment of the media item. In addition to sending one or moredigital fingerprints of a claimed media item and/or one or more segmentsof the claimed media item, the rights holder computing device 101A-Z ormedia aggregator computing device 103 may also send metadata associatedwith the claimed media item.

Each rights holder computing device 101A-N and media aggregatorcomputing device 103 may include a digital fingerprint generator (notshown) provided by an operator of the aggregated media rights platform170. The rights holder computing devices 101A-N and/or media aggregatorcomputing device 103 may process claimed media items using the digitalfingerprint generator to generate digital fingerprints of the claimedmedia items. The digital fingerprints may then be provided in a rightsfeed rather than the media item itself. A digital fingerprint of a mediaitem is considerably smaller in file size than the media item itself.Accordingly, network bandwidth utilization may be reduced by havingrights holder computing devices101A-N and media aggregator computingdevice 103 generate and provide digital fingerprints of claimed mediaitems rather than the claimed media items themselves.

Aggregated media rights platform 170 may include one or more modules,which may include a claimed media ingestion module 180, a hosted mediaingestion module 182, a media rights determiner 184, a hosted mediaaction determiner 186, an advertisement module 189, a rights holderinterface 188, a sync license module 187 and/or a platform interface190. These modules may be divided into additional modules or combinedinto fewer modules. Additionally, the operations of the aggregated mediarights platform 170 are discussed with reference to different modulesfor convenience in explanation and understanding. However, the discussedoperations may be grouped and implemented in many different ways thanthose discussed herein.

Claimed media ingestion module 180 receives rights feeds from rightsholder computing devices 101A-N and media aggregator computing device103. A rights feed from media aggregator computing device 103 mayinclude rights claims for multiple different rights holders (e.g., thoseassociated with rights holder computing devices 104A-M). The mediaaggregator may or may not itself claim rights in any of the rightsclaims that it provides. For example, the media aggregator may licenserights from individual rights holders, and provide bundles of rightsclaims that it has licensed. Alternatively, the media aggregator maysimply aggregate rights claims of multiple different rights holderswithout itself having any media rights, and may provide bundles of suchrights claims.

When a new rights claim is received, claimed media ingestion module 180generates a digital fingerprint of a received claimed media item if nodigital fingerprint was received. If a digital fingerprint was received,then claimed media ingestion module 180 may not generate a digitalfingerprint. Claimed media ingestion module 180 then compares thedigital fingerprint for the claimed media item to a library of digitalfingerprints of claimed media items 172.

Digital fingerprints are compact digital representations of a media item(or a segment of a media item) extracted from a media item (audio orvideo) which represent characteristics or features of the media itemwith enough specificity to uniquely identify the media item. Originalmedia items (e.g., claimed media items that are known works) may beregistered to the aggregated media rights platform 170, which mayinclude generating a plurality of segments of the original claimed mediaitem in some instances. Digital fingerprints may be generated for eachof a plurality of segments of the claimed media item (or a singledigital fingerprint may be generated for the entire claimed media item)or for the entire claimed media item, unless such digital fingerprintswere received. Fingerprinting algorithms encapsulate features such asframe snippets, motion and music changes, camera cuts, brightness level,object movements, loudness, pitch, brightness, spectral bandwidth,energy in one or more spectral bands, spectral steadiness, Mel-frequencycepstral coefficients (MFCCs), and so on. The fingerprinting algorithmthat is used may be different for audio media items and video mediaitems. Additionally, different fingerprinting algorithms may be used togenerate digital fingerprints usable to identify a copy of a known workand to generate digital fingerprints usable to identify a cover of aknown work.

For example, a fingerprinting algorithm used to generate digitalfingerprints of audio data measures a variety of acoustical features ofa sequence of segments of the audio data. The acoustical features mayinclude loudness, pitch, bass, brightness, bandwidth, Mel-frequencycepstral coefficients (MFCCs), and so forth. The fingerprintingalgorithm may also compute first and/or second derivatives of some orall of these features to determine changes in the features and rates ofchanges in the features. The fingerprinting algorithm may computestatistical measurements such as mean and standard deviations of each ofthese features over one or more segments as well. Some or all of thesevalues may be included in the feature vector of the audio data. In oneembodiment, a digital fingerprint of the audio data includes a sequenceof smaller digital fingerprints, where each digital fingerprint is for asegment of the media item that overlaps with other segments of the mediaitem. For example, a first digital fingerprint may be for a segment ofseconds 1-6, a second digital fingerprint may be for a segment ofseconds 2-6, and so on.

In another example, a fingerprinting algorithm used to generate digitalfingerprints of video data may measure a variety of features such asframe snippets, motion changes, camera cuts, brightness level, objectmovements, and so on. Unlike audio, video is divided into frames.Accordingly, for video media items (or video portions of media items)features may be determined per frame. In one embodiment, extractedfeatures for a video media content item are based on features such asintensity, moving objects (e.g., objects that move between frames), andother image based features. In one embodiment, each frame is dividedinto a grid, and a bit pattern is computed based on the grid. Thefingerprinting algorithm may examine neighboring cells in the grid todetermine if neighboring cells are brighter or darker than a given cell.Vectors may be computed for each cell that indicates the change inintensity to adjacent cells. A vector grid may be generated for eachframe, and vector grids of adjacent in time frames may be compared. Agray scale difference between the vector grids may be determined toidentify locations in the grid where objects have moved. Movement may beplaced into quadrants. Accordingly, a feature that may be determined ismotion between frames (e.g., using pixel values over an interval), whichmay include area that the motion has occurred in the screen, an amountof motion, and so on. Additionally, static features may be determinedfor each frame (e.g., may be actual pixel values in a frame).

In one embodiment, video is down sampled for feature extraction andfingerprint generation. For example, an original resolution may be downsampled to a 100×100 pixel resolution in embodiments. The frame rate mayalso be down sampled (e.g., from about 60 frames per second to about 5frames per second).

Many other fingerprinting algorithms and techniques than those discussedherein may be used to generate digital fingerprints of audio data and ofvideo data. Some example digital fingerprinting techniques andtechniques for comparison of digital fingerprints between media itemsare discussed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/726,278, filed Oct.5, 2017, the entire contents of which are incorporated by referenceherein.

Digital fingerprints generated for a registered work (a claimed mediaitem) are stored along with content metadata in media rights data store152. Digital fingerprints can be compared and used to identify hostedmedia items and claimed media items even in cases of contentmodification, alteration, or obfuscation (e.g., compression, aspectratio changes, re-sampling, change in color, dimensions, format,bitrates, equalization) or content degradation (e.g., distortion due toconversion, loss in quality, blurring, cropping, addition of backgroundnoise, etc.) in embodiments. Additionally, or alternatively, digitalfingerprints may be usable to identify covers of claimed media items. Insome embodiments, multiple different digital fingerprints are generatedfor claimed media items. For example, a first digital fingerprint (orset of digital fingerprints) may be generated for determining exactmatching and identification of copies of portions of the claimed mediaitem and a second digital fingerprint (or set of digital fingerprints)may be generated for identifying covers of the claimed media item.

If a match is found between the digital fingerprint of the claimed mediaitem and a digital fingerprint of a claimed media item that already hasan entry in media rights data store 152, then the entry in the mediarights data store 152 is updated to include the data from the rightsclaim. If no match is found between the digital fingerprint of theclaimed media item and digital fingerprints of claimed media items 172in the media rights data store 152, then a new entry is added for theclaimed media item to the media rights data store 152. The new entry mayinclude the rights claim (e.g., including the type of right, territoriesto which is applies, media sharing platforms to which it applies, a timeperiod for which it applies, etc.), information about the rights holder,the digital fingerprint, other metadata associated with the claimedmedia item, and/or other information.

When a rights claim is added to an entry for a claimed media item 172 inthe media rights data store 152, a “not for production” flag (alsoreferred to as an “uncleared” flag) may be set for that rights claim.The “not for production” flag may then be removed once the new rightsclaim has been cleared of any possible rights conflicts. While the “notfor production” flag is set, a rights claim (and its associated contentmanagement rule) will not apply to hosted media items that may containportions of the claimed media item. However, if the “not for production”flag is not set, then the rights claim (and its associated contentmanagement rule) will apply to hosted media items that may containportions of the claimed media item. Alternatively, data for new claimedmedia items may be initially added to a staging area, which may be aseparate data store from the media rights data store. Content managementrules and rights claims associated with claimed media items in thestaging area may not be applied. Once a rights claim for a claimed mediaitem with an entry in the staging area is cleared, then the data for theclaimed media item may be moved from the staging area to the mediarights data store 152. In other words, once the new claimed media itemshave their rights claims cleared of conflict, then they may be moved tothe media rights data store.

Media rights determiner 184 determines rights associated with claimedmedia items 172, resolves conflicts between rights claims, anddetermines when claimed media items 172 can be used in hosted mediaitems. As discussed above, data feeds may be received from multipledifferent rights holder computing devices 101A-N and/or a mediaaggregator computing device 103. Each data feed may include data for oneor a set of claimed media items, including rights claims to those mediaitems. In some instances, multiple different rights holders may claimthe same right to a particular claimed media item 172.

The rights claims may be to the same claimed media item, may be for thesame rights (e.g., publishing rights, composition rights, soundrecording rights, performance rights, etc.), may be for the sameterritory, may be for the same media sharing platform, and so on. Rightsconflicts may be identified at the metadata level (matching metadatabetween rights claims, such as claims to the same song by name) and/orfingerprint level (matching digital fingerprints). At the fingerprintlevel, full matches (e.g., 90% or greater match of the duration of onefingerprint against another digital fingerprint) and partial matches(e.g., less than 90% match in duration of one fingerprint againstanother fingerprint) may be determined. For example, minutes 2-10 of afirst digital fingerprint may match minutes 1-9 of a second digitalfingerprint, resulting in a 90% match in duration. Based on thisinformation, the level of conflict between rights claims may bedetermined.

When multiple different overlapping rights claims are identified for aclaimed media item, then media rights determiner 184 may determine thata rights conflict exists between the different rights holders claimingthe overlapping rights and initiate a conflict resolution processbetween those rights holders. Media rights determiner 184 may thenresolve the rights conflict based on feedback from one or more of therights holders and/or based on an automated conflict resolution processthat does not involve feedback from rights holders. Media rightsdeterminer 184 may provide a threaded discussion platform with fullhistory between all rights holders in conflict. A conversation historybetween rights holders may be tied to or grouped across similarconflicts between the same rights holders. The resolution of multiplerights conflicts between the same rights holders may be processed in asingle communication exchange in embodiments. Once the rights conflictis resolved, media rights determiner 184 updates the claimed media itemin question with the appropriate rights information. The conflictresolution process is discussed in greater detail below with referenceto FIGS. 2-4B.

As set forth above, each claimed media item may have multiple differentrights associated with it (e.g., publishing rights, composition rights,sound recording rights, performance rights, etc.). Media rightsdeterminer 184 may aggregate the various rights associated with aclaimed media item and determine whether all rights are accounted forwith regards to that claimed media item. Once all of the rights areaccounted for with regards to the claimed media item, the media rightsdeterminer 184 may then compare the content management rules provided byeach of the rights holders that holds one or more of the rights to theclaimed media item and determine from the comparison one or more actionsthat are permitted by each of the content management rules.

The set of actions permitted for a claimed media item may then becommunicated to each media sharing platform. Different sets of rightsmay be sent to different media sharing platforms (e.g., if differentactions are permitted on different media sharing platforms). Forexample, the same piece of content may be blocked on one media sharingplatform but licensed on another media sharing platform. A set ofactions may indicate for each territory the rules to follow with regardsto streaming or otherwise showing content including the claimed mediaitem.

In an example, if all of the content management rules state that theclaimed media item may be monetized, then media rights determiner maydetermine a monetization policy for the claimed media item, and maynotify media sharing platforms 175A-Z of the monetization policy.However, if one of the content management rules indicates that theclaimed media item cannot be posted to media sharing platforms, thenmedia rights determiner 184 may determine a takedown policy for theclaimed media item and may notify the media sharing platforms 175A-Z ofthe takedown policy. At any time one or more of the rights holders mayadjust their content management rule associated with a claimed mediaitem, at which point the media rights determiner 104 may make a newdetermination as to which actions are permitted for that claimed mediaitem. As a rights holder changes one or more parameters of a contentmanagement rule for a claimed media item, media rights determiner 184may determine which media sharing platforms and/or territories areaffected and notify one or more media sharing platforms of the change.The notification may be in regards to hosted media items on those mediasharing platforms that contain the claimed media item with the changedcontent management rule. FIGS. 5-6 describe methods for determining theactions that are permissible for hosted media items that includeportions or an entire content of claimed media items, in accordance withembodiments of the present disclosure.

OSP computing devices 105A-Z may each host a different media sharingplatform 175A-Z. Examples of media sharing platforms 175A-Z includeYouTube®, Vimeo®, Wistia®, Vidyard®, SproutVideo F®, Daily Motion®,Facebook®. Media sharing platforms 175A-Z may receive user uploads ofuser generated content (UGC). Such user generated content may then beaccessible to other users. User generated content includes hosted mediaitems that have been uploaded to the media sharing platform 175A-Z. Suchhosted media items may include copyrighted material in many instances(e.g., may incorporate content from one or more claimed media items).However, media sharing platforms 175A-Z generally do not know whetheruploaded UGC includes copyrighted material (e.g., copies of claimedmedia items) when the UGC is uploaded. Accordingly, media sharingplatforms 175A-Z rely on aggregated media rights platform 170 toidentify UGC that incorporates copyrighted material (e.g., that includesportions of claimed media items).

OSP computing devices 105A-Z each provide a feed of hosted media itemshosted by media sharing platforms 175A-Z on the OSP computing devices105A-Z. The feed may be a live stream of data, or may be a continuous orperiodic stream of data. Each feed of hosted media items may includedata for one or more hosted media items that has been uploaded to aparticular media sharing platform 175A-Z. A hosted media item may beaudio (e.g., a song or album), a video, or other work that has beenuploaded to a media sharing platform 175A-Z. The media item may be afile (e.g., an audio file having a format such as WAV, RIFF, AU, FLAC,ALAC, MPEG-4, MP3, Opus, Vorbis, MC, ATRAC, WMA, and so on, or a videofile having a format such as WebM, Flash Video, F4V, Vob, Ogg, Dirac,AVI, QuickTime File Format, Windows Media Video, MPEG-4, MPEG-1, MPEG-2,M4V, SVI, MP4, FLV, and so on). The hosted media item may be provided toserver computing device 150 as a single file or multiple files (e.g., asa portion of a larger file). Alternatively, one or more digitalfingerprints (e.g., sets of features) of the hosted media item may begenerated and provided to aggregated media rights platform 170. In oneembodiment, a digital fingerprint generator divides a hosted media iteminto multiple segments, and one or more segments (or a digitalfingerprint of one or more segments) are sent to server computing device150. Alternatively, a digital fingerprint of the hosted media item maybe determined from the whole of the hosted media item and transmitted tothe server computing device 150. In addition to sending one or moredigital fingerprints of a hosted media item and/or one or more segmentsof the hosted media item, the media sharing platform 175A-Z may alsosend metadata associated with the hosted media item.

Each OSP computing device 105A-Z may include a digital fingerprintgenerator (not shown) provided by an operator of the aggregated mediarights platform 170. The OSP computing devices 105A-Z may process hostedmedia items using the digital fingerprint generator to generate digitalfingerprints of the hosted media items. In some embodiments hosted mediaitems may include a video portion and an audio portion. Accordingly, OSPcomputing devices 105A-Z may include an audio fingerprint generator anda video fingerprint generator in some embodiments. The audio fingerprintgenerator may generate a fingerprint of audio data in a hosted mediaitem, and the video fingerprint generator may generate a fingerprint ofvideo data in a hosted media item. Alternatively, a single digitalfingerprint generator may generate a digital fingerprint that includeboth an audio fingerprint portion and a video fingerprint portion. Thedigital fingerprints may then be provided in a hosted media data feedrather than the hosted media item itself, A digital fingerprint of amedia item is considerably smaller in file size than the media itemitself. Accordingly, network bandwidth utilization may be reduced byhaving OSP computing devices 105A-Z generate and provide digitalfingerprints of hosted media items rather than the hosted media itemsthemselves.

Hosted media ingestion module 182 processes feeds of hosted media itemsfrom OSP computing devices 105A-Z. Hosted media ingestion module 182 maybe configured to determine whether a received hosted media item is orincludes a copy of (or a copy of a portion of) a known claimed mediaitem 172. In an embodiment, the hosted media ingestion module 182 mayreceive the hosted media item, segments of the hosted media item, and/orone or more digital fingerprints of the hosted media item from an OSPcomputing device 105A-Z. For example, the hosted media ingestion module182 may receive an unidentified hosted media item from OSP computingdevice 105A and determine whether the unidentified hosted media itemincorporates music from a claimed media item or incorporates video froma claimed media item.

The digital fingerprint (or multiple digital fingerprints) of theunknown hosted media item may be compared against the digitalfingerprints of all known works registered with aggregated media rightsplatform 170 (e.g., against the digital fingerprints of all claimedmedia items 172). Once a match is found between a digital fingerprint ofthe hosted media item and a digital fingerprint of a portion of aclaimed media item, a determination may be made that the hosted mediaitem incorporates at least the portion of the claimed media item.

Aggregated media rights platform 170 may maintain a hosted media datastore 156. Each entry in the hosted media data store 156 may beassociated with a distinct hosted media item. A unique hosted mediaidentifier (ID) may be generated for each hosted media item. An entryfor a hosted media item may include a hosted media ID assigned byaggregated media rights platform 170, a unique ID assigned by the mediasharing platform, one or more digital fingerprints of a hosted mediaitem, other metadata of the hosted media item, and/or other information.

If a match is found between the digital fingerprint of the hosted mediaitem and a digital fingerprint of a claimed media item, then the entryin the hosted media data store 156 is updated to include the dataregarding the match (e.g., identifying the claimed media itemincorporated into the hosted media item by a unique claimed media itemID).

In some embodiments, hosted media ingestion module 182 applies anunknown hosted media item, one or more segments of the unknown hostedmedia item, set of features of the unknown hosted media item, or digitalfingerprint(s) of the unknown hosted media item to a trained machinelearning profile. The trained machine learning profile may then classifythe unknown hosted media item as music or as not music. If the unknownmedia content item is classified as containing music, the hosted mediaingestion module 182 may compare digital fingerprints of the unknownhosted media item to digital fingerprints of known claimed media items172 that also contain music. This may reduce the processing resourcesutilized to match the digital fingerprint. The entry for the hostedmedia item 176 may also be updated to indicate that it contains music.Once the digital fingerprint of the received hosted media item hasmatched an instance of a known claimed media item, the hosted media itemis identified as being a copy of, or incorporating a portion of, theknown claimed media item 172.

In one embodiment, hosted media ingestion module 182 classifies hostedmedia items using machine learning profiles and/or machine learningmodels (i.e., profiles and models produced using machine learningtechniques). Server computing device 150 may receive a collection ofhosted media items and/or claimed media items, which may be used totrain a machine learning profile and/or model. The hosted media itemsand/or claimed media items may be provided as an input to a machinelearning profiler as part of a training data set to generate theprofiles and/or models. The machine learning profiler may performsupervised machine learning to identify a set of features that areindicative of a first classification and another set of features thatare indicative of another classification. The first set of featuresindicative of the first classification (e.g., indicative of music) maybe defined in a first model and a second set of features indicative ofthe second classification (e.g., lack of music) may be defined in asecond model. Alternatively, profiles may be generated for more than twoclassifications.

The machine learning profiler may generate machine learning profiles foridentifying one or more classes of hosted media items. For example, themachine learning profiler may generate a profile for identifying, forhosted media items having audio, whether the audio comprises music ordoes not comprise music. Similarly, the machine learning profiler maygenerate a profile for identifying, for audio, a classification whereinthe audio comprises a particular categorization of music (e.g., a genreincluding rock, classical, pop, etc.; characteristics includinginstrumental, a cappella, etc., and so on). The machine learningprofiler may generate a profile for identifying, for media content itemsincluding video, a classification wherein the video comprises acategorization of movie (e.g., a genre including action, anime, drama,comedy, etc.; characteristics including nature scenes, actor screentime, etc.; recognizable dialogue of famous movies, and so on). Hostedmedia items may also be classified through manual curation and/or othertechnologies.

In some embodiments, hosted media ingestion module 182 may determinewhether an unidentified hosted media item is a cover version of a knownclaimed media item or whether the unidentified hosted media item is anoriginal work itself. In an embodiment, the hosted media ingestionmodule 182 may extract one or more sets of audio features from thehosted media item, transform the audio features, and compare thetransformed audio features to features of the known claimed media items.The transformed set of audio features may make up one or more digitalfingerprints of the hosted media item. The hosted media ingestion module182 may also identify metadata from the unidentified hosted media itemand perform a comparison to the metadata associated with known claimedmedia items 172 in order to determine similarities between the metadataassociated with the unidentified hosted media item and the metadataassociated with known claimed media items.

Once a hosted media item is identified as a cover of a known claimedmedia item, that hosted media item may be linked to the known claimedmedia item in hosted media data store. For example, an entry for ahosted media item 176 may be updated to indicate that the hosted mediaitem is a cover of a particular claimed media item, Covers may also linkto other covers of the same known claimed media item.

Hosted media action determiner 186 determines one or more actions totake with regards to host media items. For example, a hosted media itemmay be tagged as containing a known claimed media item, advertising maybe applied to the hosted media item and licensing revenues may beattributed to the owner(s) of the rights to the claimed media item, thehosted media item may be removed from the media content sharingplatform, and so on. Once a determination has been made that a hostedmedia item incorporates one or more claimed media items, hosted mediaaction determiner 186 may determine what actions are permitted forhosted media items that incorporate the one or more claimed media items.If each of the claimed media items that are incorporated into a hostedmedia item have at least one overlapping permitted action with eachother, then hosted media action determiner 186 may determine that theoverlapping permitted action is to be taken for the hosted media item.For example, if all of the rights holders of all of the claimed mediaitems that are incorporated into a hosted media item provided contentmanagement rules that permitted revenue generation through advertising,then hosted media action determiner 186 may determine that the hostedmedia item may be posted, viewed, and shown with advertisements. If oneor more of the content management rules associated with any of theclaimed media items limits the types of advertisements that may be shownwith the hosted media items that contain that claimed media item, thenthose limits are determined to apply to the hosted media item. Forexample, a content management rule may specify that no audio-containingadvertisements are to be shown, or no political advertisements are to beshown, or no advertisements to particular products are to be shown, andso on. Additionally, if any of the claimed media items incorporated intoa hosted media item has a takedown policy associated with it (e.g.,because one of the rights holders indicated that the claimed media itemshould not be posted to media sharing platforms), then the takedownpolicy may apply to the hosted media item.

Hosted media action determiner 186 notifies the media sharing platform175A-Z hosting a hosted media item of the permitted actions for thathosted media item. The notice may include a unique identifier (ID)assigned to the hosted media item by the media sharing platform and/or aunique ID assigned by the aggregated media rights platform 170 alongwith the set of actions. Hosted media action determiner 186 may notifythe media sharing platform 175A-Z of the permitted actions responsive toreceiving a notice from the media sharing platform 175A-Z that the mediasharing platform is hosting that hosted media item (e.g., via a datafeed of hosted media items from that media sharing platform). Thepermitted actions may include a set of actions, possibly includingdifferent actions for different territories. The set of actions may beactions that are permitted for that hosted media item on that particularmedia sharing platform. A different media sharing platform hosting acopy of the same hosted media item may receive the same set of actionsor a different set of actions, depending on the content management rulesassociated with the claimed media items incorporated into the hostedmedia item.

Additionally, when a viewer attempts to view the hosted media item on amedia sharing platform, the media sharing platform 175A-Z may send anotice to aggregated media rights platform 170. The notice may includeone or more unique identifier (ID) associated with the hosted media itemalong with an indication of a territory in which the hosted media itemwill be viewed. Hosted media action determiner 186 may then againdetermine an appropriate action for that hosted media item on theparticular media sharing platform viewed in the particular territory. Ifthe hosted media item can be viewed on that media sharing platform inthat territory, then hosted media action determiner 186 may notify themedia sharing platform to permit the hosted media item to be viewed. Ifthe hosted media item cannot be viewed on that media sharing platform inthat territory (based on the set of actions permitted for that hostedmedia item at the time of viewing), then hosted media action determiner186 may notify the media sharing platform 175A-Z not to allow the hostedmedia item to be viewed. In embodiments, rights holders may modify thecontent management rules associated with claimed media items at anytime. Accordingly, hosted media action determiner 186 may determinepermissible actions for hosted media items both at the time of upload tothe media sharing platforms and at the time of viewing of the hostedmedia item by viewers.

The processing of hosted media items as well as determination ofpermissible actions for hosted media items is discussed in greaterdetail with reference to FIGS. 8A-13B.

In some embodiments, aggregated media rights platform includes a musicsynchronization (sync) license module 187. Sync license module maygenerate sync licenses for hosted media items, as described in greaterdetail with reference to FIG. 7.

In some embodiments, media rights determiner 184 stores licensoragreements of different media sharing platforms in a licensor agreementdata store. Each media sharing platform may have different approvals,permissions, licenses, royalty rate agreements, etc. in place withrights holders with regards to claimed media items. Media rightsdeterminer 184 may calculate royalty rates owed to rights holders basedon a) view data of hosted media items received from media sharingplatforms and b) stored licensor agreements.

In some embodiments, aggregated media rights platform 170 includes anadvertisement module 189 that provides advertisements and/or othercontent displaying or playing along with a hosted media item. Furtherinformation about providing advertisements and/or other content forhosted media items to media sharing platforms is described withreference to FIGS. 15-16.

Aggregated media rights platform 170 may include a rights holderinterface 188 and a platform interface 190. The rights holder interface188 may provide a dashboard for a rights holder showing all of theclaimed media items to which the rights holder has rights, theparticular rights that the rights holder has to those claimed mediaitems, the number of hosted media items that incorporate each of theclaimed media items, the amount of views/plays of the claimed mediaitems (e.g., of the hosted media items containing the claimed mediaitems), the amount of revenue generated for the claimed media items, theamount of revenue generated by each media sharing platform, and/or otherinformation. The rights holder interface 188 may provide aggregation andnormalization of reporting across media sharing platforms. Via therights holder interface 188, a rights holder may select a claimed mediaitem, modify a content management rule of the claimed media item, updatea rights claim to a claimed media item, and/or perform other actions.The rights holder interface 188 provides a simple dashboard in which therights holder can see all of their information for all of their claimedmedia items aggregated across multiple different media sharingplatforms.

Responsive to a rights holder modifying a content management rule for aclaimed media item, hosted media action determiner 186 may determine allhosted media items that include that claimed media item, re-compute thesets of actions for those hosted media items, and notify the mediasharing platforms hosting those hosted media items of the updated setsof actions. Rights holders may also manually claim media itemsincorporated into hosted media items via the rights holder interface188. The media item may have been added to the media rights data store(with a unique ID, digital fingerprints, etc.), but without data on anyrights holder. After the rights holder manually claims the media item,their ownership claim may be added to the entry for that media item.

Platform interface 190 may provide a dashboard for a media sharingplatform showing all of the hosted media items hosted by the mediasharing platform, the claimed media items incorporated into those hostedmedia items, the rights holders holding rights to the claimed mediaitems, the amount of views/plays of the hosted media items, the amountof revenue due to each of the rights holders, and/or other information.The platform interface 190 provides a simple dashboard in which themedia sharing platform can see all of their information for all of theirhosted media items aggregated across multiple different rights holders.The dashboard may show information on hosted media items at a microlevel, showing each view and the royalties due to each rights holder forthat view. Billions of similar data elements may be aggregated to showtotal revenue for territories, rights holders, hosted media items, andso on.

A process for aggregating information on hosted media items and/orclaimed media items and providing a dashboard interface of theaggregated information for rights holders and media sharing platforms isshown in FIG. 14.

In some embodiments, the aggregated media rights platform 170 may notifymedia sharing platforms to proceed with hosting or sharing hosted mediaitems that incorporate claimed media items for which rights conflictsare pending. As long as a) all of the rights are accounted for withregards to a claimed media item and b) an aggregate of the contentmanagement rules of all of the rights holders (including those inconflict) permit the hosting or monetization, that claimed media itemmay still be monetized and/or hosted even if there is some conflictbetween the declared rights. In such an instance, aggregated mediarights platform may receive reports from media sharing platforms onrevenues raised in association with these hosted media items before therights conflict is resolved. Aggregated media rights platform mayadditionally receive royalty payments from media sharing platforms.Aggregated media rights platform 170 may compute royalties owed todifferent rights holders and pay the royalties to those rights holdersfor which there is no rights conflict, es appropriate. Aggregated mediarights platform 170 may additionally act as a cross-platform escrowservice and store the royalties received from multiple media sharingplatforms that is due to the rightful holder of the conflicting rightsuntil the rights conflict is resolved. Once the rights conflict isresolved in favor of a particular rights holder, the royalties due tothat particular rights holder may be paid.

In one embodiment, aggregated media rights platform may notify media.sharing platforms to proceed with hosting or sharing hosted media itemsthat incorporate claimed media items for which not all rights have beendetermined. This may be performed for particular territories such asEurope, for example. The aggregated media rights platform may collectand store the royalties due to an unknown rights holder or rightsholders of the one or more claimed media items until the rightsholder(s) is determined.

FIGS. 2-16 are flow diagrams illustrating various methods performed byan aggregated media rights platform 170. The methods may be performed byprocessing logic that comprises hardware (e.g., circuitry, dedicatedlogic, programmable logic, microcode, etc.), software (e.g.,instructions run on a processor), firmware, or a combination thereof.The methods may be performed, for example, by server computing device150 of FIG. 1 in embodiments.

FIG. 2 is a flow diagram illustrating a method 200 for identifying andresolving a rights conflict between rights holders to a claimed mediaitem, according to an embodiment. In some embodiments, the claimed mediaitem is an audio media item, such as a recording of a song. In someembodiments, the claimed media item is a visual media item, such as astill image or a video. At block 205 of method 200, processing logicreceives data in a rights feed from a first rights holder. The receiveddata may include a first claimed media item, a first digital fingerprintof the first claimed media item, a first content management rule thatgoverns actions that can be performed with reference to the claimedmedia item, first metadata associated with the first media item and/or afirst rights claim to the first claimed media item.

In some instances, the received data includes the claimed media item.Processing logic may then generate a digital fingerprint of the claimedmedia item. A first digital fingerprint generating algorithm may be usedto generate digital fingerprints of audio media items, while a seconddigital fingerprint generating algorithm may be used to generate digitalfingerprints of videos and/or images. In some instances, the receiveddata includes a digital fingerprint of the claimed media item ratherthan the claimed media item itself. A rights holder may generate thedigital fingerprint and send the digital fingerprint rather than theclaimed media item to reduce an amount of network bandwidth that isused.

The first content management rule may specify one or more rules for useof the claimed media item. The one or more rules may include rulesspecific to one or more territories, rules specific to one or more mediasharing platforms, rules specific to one or more time periods, and so onas discussed above. The first rights claim may specify one or moreparticular rights to the claimed media item (e.g., publishing rights forone or more territories and/or one or more media sharing platforms,performance rights for one or more territories and/or one or more mediasharing platforms, and so on). The metadata may describe one or moreattributes of the claimed media item and may include descriptive textabout the claimed media item, such as an artist name, an album name, asong name, cover information (if the claimed media item is a cover ofanother media item), and so on. The metadata may also include thecontent management rule and/or rights claim.

At block 210, processing logic may generate a first entry in a mediarights data store for the first claimed media item. The first entry maybe generated for the claimed media item and the rights holder in someembodiments. In some embodiments, processing logic determines if anentry in the media rights data store already exists for the claimedmedia item. If so, then processing logic may either a) generate anadditional entry for the claimed media item and link the new entry tothe existing entry for the claimed media item or b) add additional datato the already existing entry for the claimed media item in the mediadata store.

In one embodiment, processing logic compares the digital fingerprint forthe claimed media item to digital fingerprints of other claimed mediaitems in the media rights data store to determine if the claimed mediaitem matches any media item for which rights have already been claimedby another rights holder. If a match is found between the digitalfingerprint of the claimed media item and a digital fingerprint of aclaimed media item already represented in the media rights data store,then processing logic may determine that they are for the same claimedmedia item, and may update the one or more entries for that claimedmedia item in the media rights data store accordingly. For example, ifthere are two separate entries, then these entries may be linked orcombined. If there is a single entry, then the entry may be updated toindicate the rights claims of each of the rights holders who haveclaimed rights to the claimed media item.

At block 212, processing logic determines whether the first rights claimconflicts with any other rights claims for the first claimed media item.Processing logic may identify rights conflicts by comparing the rightsclaims of each rights holder who has asserted a rights claim to thefirst claimed media item to each other rights claim that has also beenasserted to the first claimed media item. A conflict occurs if two ormore rights holders claim at least one overlapping right to the claimedmedia item. For example, a conflict may occur if two rights holders eachclaim 100% of the publishing rights to the first claimed media item inFrance. If a rights conflict is identified at block 212, then the methodproceeds to block 225. If no rights claim is identified, then the methodproceeds to block 215.

At block 215, processing logic may update the entry for the first mediaitem in the media rights data store. In some embodiments, the firstentry for the first claimed media item initially has an “uncleared” or“not for production” flag set. Alternatively, the first rights claim inthe first entry may have an “uncleared” or “not for production” flagset, Once a determination has been made that there is no conflictbetween the first rights claim and any preexisting rights claim to thefirst claimed media item, then processing logic may unset the“uncleared” or “not for production” flag. Once the flag is unset, thenthe first rights claim will apply to the claimed media item for hostedmedia items that incorporate the claimed media item. Additionally, thefirst content management rule associated with the first rights claimwill become active, meaning that it will apply to hosted media items onmedia sharing platforms that incorporate at least portions of theclaimed media item.

At block 225, processing logic determines the conflicting rights holdersfor the first claimed media item. The conflicting rights holders includethe first rights holder and a second rights holder that also assertedthe same rights claim to the first media item as the first rightsholder. Processing logic may initiate a conflict management processbetween the first and second rights holders. At block 230, processinglogic may then send a notice of the rights conflict to the first rightsholder and/or to one or more other rights holders that claim aconflicting right to the first claimed media item (e.g., theaforementioned second rights holder). The notice sent to a rights holdermay identify the claimed media item (e.g., may include metadata aboutthe claimed media item), may include a unique ID assigned by theaggregated media rights platform, may include a unique ID assigned bythe rights holder to the claimed media item, and/or may identify therights conflict. The notice may include a request for verification thatthe rights holder does indeed own the claimed rights to the claimedmedia item. The notice may be sent to just the first rights holder, tojust the second rights holder, or to both the first and second rightsholders (and/or other rights holders) in embodiments.

At block 235, processing logic receives a response from the first rightsholder and/or the one or more other rights holders (e.g., the secondrights holder) relinquishing their claim on the first claimed mediaitem. In an example, the second rights holder may have initially ownedfirst rights to the claimed media item, but may have sold the firstrights to the first rights holder and failed to inform the aggregatedmedia rights platform of the rights transfer. Responsive to receivingthe note at block 230, the second rights holder may acknowledge thatthey gave up the first rights. In another example, first rights holdermay have erroneously claimed the first rights, and after receiving thenotice at block 230 may identify their error and notice processing logicof the error.

Once the response to the notice is received from one or more rightsholders, the method may return to block 212, and processing logic mayagain determine whether the first rights claim conflicts with any otherrights claims. Alternatively, the method may proceed to block 215.

FIG. 3 is a flow diagram illustrating another method 300 for identifyingand resolving a rights conflict between rights holders to a claimedmedia item, according to an embodiment. In some embodiments, the claimedmedia item is an audio media item, such as a recording of a song. Insome embodiments, the claimed media item is a visual media item, such asa still image or a video. At block 305 of method 300, processing logicreceives data in a first rights feed from a first rights holder. Thereceived data may include a first claimed media item, a first digitalfingerprint of the first claimed media item, a first content managementrule that governs actions that can be performed with reference to theclaimed media item, first metadata associated with the first media itemand/or a first rights claim to the first claimed media item. The firstrights claim may include a first set of rights to the first claimedmedia item (e.g., publishing rights for one or more territories and/orone or more media sharing platforms, performance rights for one or moreterritories and/or one or more media sharing platforms, and so on). Forexample, the first set of rights may include publishing rights to one ormore territories (e.g., one or more countries), publishing rights forone or more time periods and/or publishing rights on one or more mediasharing platforms. For example, a particular right in the set of rightsmay be a publishing right to the claimed media item in Germany, onFacebook, for the period starting January 2012 and ending January 2020.

In some instances, the received data includes the first claimed mediaitem. Processing logic may then generate a digital fingerprint of thefirst claimed media item. In some instances, the received data includesa digital fingerprint of the first claimed media item rather than thefirst claimed media item itself.

At block 308, processing logic receives data in a second rights feedfrom a second rights holder. The received data may include a secondclaimed media item, a second digital fingerprint of the second claimedmedia item, a second content management rule that governs actions thatcan be performed with reference to the second claimed media item, secondmetadata associated with the second claimed media item and/or a secondrights claim to the second claimed media item. The second rights claimmay include a second set of rights to the first claimed media item.

In some instances, the received data includes the second claimed mediaitem. Processing logic may then generate a digital fingerprint of thesecond claimed media item. In some instances, the received data includesa digital fingerprint of the second claimed media item rather than thefirst claimed media item itself.

At block 310, processing logic determines that the first claimed mediaitem and the second claimed media item are copies of the same claimedmedia item. This determination may be made by comparing the firstdigital fingerprint to the second digital fingerprint and determiningthat the first digital fingerprint matches the second digitalfingerprint, A match between the two digital fingerprints may bedetermined by determining a similarity value representing a similaritybetween the first digital fingerprint and the second digitalfingerprint, and then determining that the similarity value exceeds asimilarity threshold. Any entry for the first claimed media item mayhave been generated at block 305 responsive to receiving the data forthe first claimed media item. The second digital fingerprint may then becompared to the digital fingerprints in each of the entries for claimedmedia items to identify any matches.

In one embodiment, processing logic first compares the first metadataassociated with the first claimed media item to the second metadataassociated with the second claimed media item. If a match is foundbetween the first and second metadata, then the first digitalfingerprint of the first claimed media item may be compared to thesecond digital fingerprint of the second claimed media item. Matchingmetadata may be determined by determining a similarity between the firstmetadata and the second metadata, and determining that the similarityexceeds a metadata similarity threshold. For example, processing logicmay determine that the first metadata identifies “Single Ladies byBeyoncé”, and that the second metadata identifies, “Artist: Beyoncé;Song: Single Ladies.” These metadata may be sufficiently similar for ametadata match.

At block 315, processing logic determines that the first set of rightsincludes a particular right that is also included in the second set ofrights. For example, processing logic may determine that the first setof rights and the second set of rights both include a rights claim toperformance rights in India for “Single Ladies”. At block 320,processing logic determines that a rights conflict exists between thefirst rights holder and the second rights holder with regards to theclaimed media item (e.g., for the particular right claimed by bothparties). At block 325, processing logic initiates a conflict managementprocess between the first rights holder and the second rights holder.

At block 330, processing logic may then send a notice of the rightsconflict to the first rights holder and/or to the second rights holder.The notice sent to a rights holder may identify the claimed media item(e.g., may include metadata about the claimed media item), may include aunique ID assigned by the aggregated media rights platform, may includea unique ID assigned by the rights holder to the claimed media item,and/or may identify the rights conflict. The notice may include arequest for verification that the rights holder does indeed own theclaimed rights to the claimed media item. The notice may be sent to justthe first rights holder, to just the second rights holder, or to boththe first and second rights holders in embodiments.

At block 335, processing logic receives a response from the first rightsholder or the second rights holder relinquishing their claim on thefirst claimed media item. If a response relinquishing the particularright is received from the first rights holder, then the methodcontinues to block 340. If a response relinquishing the right isreceived from the second rights holder, then the method continues toblock 350.

At block 340, processing logic determines that the particular rightsbelongs to the second rights holder. At block 345, processing logic thenresolves the rights conflict in favor of the second rights holder.Processing logic may then update an entry for the first media item inthe media rights data store. In some embodiments, the entry for thefirst claimed media item initially has an “uncleared” or “not forproduction” flag set. Alternatively, the second rights claim in theentry may have an “uncleared” or “not for production” flag set. Once theconflict is resolved, then processing logic may unset the “uncleared” or“not for production” flag. Once the flag is unset, then the claim forthe particular right in the second set of rights will apply to theclaimed media item for hosted media items that incorporate the claimedmedia item. Additionally, the second content management rule associatedwith the second rights claim will become active, meaning that it willapply to hosted media items on media sharing platforms that incorporateat least portions of the first claimed media item.

At block 350, processing logic determines that the particular rightsbelongs to the first rights holder. At block 355, processing logic thenresolves the rights conflict in favor of the first rights holder.Processing logic may then update an entry for the first media item inthe media rights data store. In some embodiments, the entry for thefirst claimed media item initially has an “uncleared” or “not forproduction” flag set. Alternatively, the first rights claim in the entrymay have an “uncleared” or “not for production” flag set, Once theconflict is resolved, then processing logic may unset the “uncleared” or“not for production” flag. Once the flag is unset, then the claim forthe particular right in the first set of rights will apply to theclaimed media item for hosted media items that incorporate the claimedmedia item. Additionally, the first content management rule associatedwith the first rights claim will become active, meaning that it willapply to hosted media items on media sharing platforms that incorporateat least portions of the first claimed media item.

Methods 200 and 300 describe two methods for determining and resolving arights conflict with regards to a claimed media item. Methods 200 and300 may be performed separately and/or one or more operations frommethod 200 may be implemented in conjunction with one or more operationsfrom method 300. The resolution of a rights conflict may be recordedalong with the specific attributes of the rights conflict. Theresolution to the rights conflict and the attributes may be used tofacilitate automatic conflict resolution for further rights conflicts(e.g., between the same two rights holders). Additionally, other datasuch as data credibility ratings may be used to facilitate automaticresolution of rights conflicts.

FIG. 4A is a flow diagram illustrating a method 400 for automaticallyresolving a rights conflict between rights holders to a claimed mediaitem, according to an embodiment. At block 405 of method 400, processinglogic determines that a first rights conflict exists between a firstrights holder and a second rights holder with respect to a first rightto a first claimed media item. At block 410, processing logic determinesthat a previous second rights conflict between the first rights holderand the second rights holder with regards to the first claimed mediaitem or a second claimed media item was resolved in favor of the firstrights holder (e.g via execution of method 200 and/or method 300).

At block 415, processing logic compares the first rights conflict withthe previous rights conflict. The first rights conflict may include afirst set of attributes such as an identity of the rights holdersclaiming the conflicting rights, an identity of the claimed media itemto which rights are claimed (e.g., album, song, performer, etc.), anindication of the type of rights in conflict (e.g., publication rights,performance rights, lyrics rights, etc.), an indication of one or moreterritories for which the rights claims were in conflict, an indicationof a time period for which the rights claimed were in conflict and/or anindication of a media sharing platform (or multiple media sharingplatforms) for which the rights claims were in conflict. Similarly, theprevious second rights conflict may include a second set of attributes.The comparison between the first rights conflict and the second rightsconflict may include a comparison of the attributes associated withthese two rights conflicts.

At block 420, processing logic may determine a similarity rating betweenthe first rights conflict and the second rights conflict based on thecomparison. The similarity rating may be computed based on a degree ofoverlap or similarity between the attributes of the first rightsconflict and the attributes of the second rights conflict. For example,if the first rights conflict and second rights conflict were both to thesame claimed media item, between the same parties, for the same set ofmedia sharing platforms and for the same time period, but for differentterritories, then the first rights conflict and second rights conflictmay have a high similarity rating. However, if the first rights conflictand second rights conflict were both to different claimed media itemswith no overlapping artist, album or song, then the first rightsconflict and second rights conflict may have a low similarity rating.

At block 425, processing logic determines whether the similarity ratingsatisfies one or more similarity criteria (e.g., meets or exceeds asimilarity threshold). If the similarity rating does not satisfy thesimilarity criteria (e.g., is below the similarity threshold), then themethod ends, and no automatic rights conflict resolution is performed.If the similarity rating does satisfy the similarity criteria (e.g.,meets or exceeds the similarity threshold), then the method continues toblock 430.

At block 430, processing logic suggests that the first rights conflictbetween the first rights holder and the second rights holder also beresolved in favor of the first rights holder in view of the previousresolution of the second rights conflict in favor of the first rightsholder and the similarity value between the first rights conflict andthe second rights conflict satisfying the similarity criteria. Thesuggestion may be sent as a message to the first rights holder and thesecond rights holder.

In some instances, the first rights holder and second rights holder mayagree to automatic rights conflict resolution. This means that the firstrights holder and second rights holder has agreed to permit processinglogic to automatically resolve a rights conflict in favor of one of theconflicting rights holders without input from either rights holder.Accordingly, at block 435, processing logic determines whether the firstand second rights holders both agreed to automatic rights conflictresolution. If at least one of the first rights holder or the secondrights holder did not agree to automatic rights conflict resolution,then the method ends and manual rights conflict resolution is performed.However, if both the first rights holder and second rights holderpreviously agreed to automatic rights conflict resolution, then themethod continues to block 440.

At block 440, processing logic automatically resolves the first rightsconflict in favor of the first rights holder. For example, if a rightsconflict between the first rights holder and the second rights holderfor a publishing right to the first claimed media item in France wasresolved in favor of the first rights holder, then there is a highprobability that a similar rights conflict between the same first rightsholder and second rights holder for the publishing right to the firstclaimed media item in England should also be resolved in favor of thefirst right holder. Automatic rights conflict resolution makes rightsconflict resolution a quick and easy process. Rights holders with groupsof similar rights conflicts can manually resolve a first rightsconflict, and processing logic may automatically resolve similar otherrights conflicts based on the resolution to the first rights conflict.This reduces a degree of user intervention with regards to rightsconflict resolution.

FIG. 4B is another flow diagram illustrating a method 450 forautomatically resolving a rights conflict between rights holders to aclaimed media item, according to art embodiment. At block 455 of method450, processing logic determines that a first rights conflict existsbetween a first rights holder and a second rights holder with respect toa first right to a first claimed media item. At block 460, processinglogic computes a first data credibility rating for the first rightsholder based on at least one of a) a number of rights conflicts causedby rights claims of the first rights holder or b) a number of rightsconflicts resolutions that resolved in favor of the first rights holder.In one embodiment, the first data credibility rating is a ratio of thenumber of rights conflicts resolutions that resolved in favor of thefirst rights holder to the number of rights conflicts caused by rightsclaims of the first rights holder. For example, if the first rightsholder caused 10 rights conflicts and 1 of those rights conflicts wasresolved in favor of the first rights holder, then the first datacredibility rating may be a value of 10%. In another example, if thefirst rights holder caused 10 rights conflicts and 9 of those rightsconflicts was resolved in favor of the first rights holder, then thefirst data credibility rating may be a value of 90%.

At block 465, processing logic computes a second data credibility ratingfor the second rights holder based on at least one of a) a number ofrights conflicts caused by rights claims of the second rights holder orb) a number of rights conflicts resolutions that resolved in favor ofthe second rights holder. In one embodiment, the second data credibilityrating is a ratio of the number of rights conflicts resolutions thatresolved in favor of the second rights holder to the number of rightsconflicts caused by rights claims of the second rights holder.

At block 470, processing logic determines that the first datacredibility rating is higher than the second data credibility rating. Inone embodiment, processing logic then automatically resolves the rightsconflict in favor of the first rights holder in view of the higher datacredibility rating of the first rights holder.

In other embodiments, a more complex set of rules are used to determinewhether a rights conflict can automatically be resolved based on thedata credibility ratings. In one embodiment, at block 472 processinglogic may determine whether the first data credibility rating is higherthan an upper credibility threshold and/or whether the second datacredibility rating is below a lower credibility threshold. The uppercredibility threshold may be, for example, a 70% or 60% ratio offavorable rights conflict resolutions to total number of rightsconflicts. The lower credibility threshold may be, for example, a 30% or40% ratio of favorable rights conflict resolutions to total number ofrights conflicts. Alternatively, a single credibility threshold (e.g.,of 50%) may be used in some embodiments. In one embodiment, if both thefirst data credibility rating and the second data credibility rating areabove the lower threshold or both the first data credibility rating andsecond data credibility rating are above the upper threshold, forexample, then processing logic may determine that data credibilityratings are not sufficient to automatically resolve the rights conflict,and the method may end (e.g., triggering manual rights conflictresolution). If the first data credibility rating is above the upperthreshold and the second data credibility rating is under the upperthreshold, then the method may continue to block 474. Similarly, if thesecond data credibility rating is below the lower threshold and thefirst data credibility rating is above the lower threshold, then themethod may continue to block 474 in an embodiment.

At block 474, processing logic suggests that the first rights conflictbetween the first rights holder and the second rights holder also beresolved in favor of the first rights holder. The suggestion may be sentas a message to the first rights holder and the second rights holder.

In some instances, the first rights holder and second rights holder mayagree to automatic rights conflict resolution. Accordingly, at block478, processing logic determines whether the first and second rightsholders both agreed to automatic rights conflict resolution. If at leastone of the first rights holder or the second rights holder did not agreeto automatic rights conflict resolution, then the method ends and manualrights conflict resolution is performed. However, if both the firstrights holder and second rights holder previously agreed to automaticrights conflict resolution, then the method continues to block 480.

At block 480, processing logic automatically resolves the first rightsconflict in favor of the first rights holder. The method then ends.

In some embodiments, the operations of method 400 and method 450 arecombined to determine whether to automatically resolve a rightsconflict. For example, processing logic may determine the similaritybetween two different rights conflicts and may also determine the datacredibility ratings for a first rights holder and a second rightsholder. A first rights conflict resolution may be determined inaccordance with method 400 and a second rights conflict resolution maybe determined in accordance with method 450. A function may then be usedto combine the first rights conflict resolution and the second rightsconflict resolution. In some embodiments, the function may be a weightedcombination of the first rights conflict resolution and the secondrights conflict resolution. In one embodiment, a confidence value isdetermined for each of the rights conflict resolutions. The confidencevalues may then be used to determine the weights for the weightedcombination. In one embodiment, the confidence values are normalized sothat the first confidence value plus the second confidence value equals100%. In one embodiment, the confidence value for the rights conflictsresolution determined from method 400 is based on the similarity betweenthe current rights conflict and the past rights conflict (or multiplepast rights conflicts) to which it is compared. In one embodiment, theconfidence value for the rights conflicts resolution determined frommethod 450 is based on the credibility ratings of the first and secondrights holders.

FIG. 5 is a flow diagram illustrating a method 500 for determining a setof actions permitted for hosted media items that comprise a claimedmedia item, according to an embodiment. In some embodiments, the claimedmedia item is an audio media item, such as a recording of a song. Insome embodiments, the claimed media item is a visual media item, such asa still image or a video. At block 505 of method 500, processing logicreceives data in a first rights feed from a first rights holder. Thereceived data may include a first claimed media item, a first digitalfingerprint of the first claimed media item, a first content managementrule that governs actions that can be performed with reference to theclaimed media item, first metadata associated with the first media itemand/or a first rights claim to the first claimed media item. The firstrights claim may include a first set of rights to the first claimedmedia item (e.g., publishing rights for one or more territories and/orone or more media sharing platforms, performance rights for one or moreterritories and/or one or more media sharing platforms, and so on). Forexample, the first set of rights may include publishing rights to one ormore territories (e.g., one or more countries), publishing rights forone or more time periods and/or publishing rights on one or more mediasharing platforms. For example, a particular right in the set of rightsmay be a publishing right to the claimed media item in Germany, onFacebook, for the period starting January 2012 and ending January 2020.

In some instances, the received data includes the first claimed mediaitem. Processing logic may then generate a digital fingerprint of thefirst claimed media item. In some instances, the received data includesa digital fingerprint of the first claimed media item rather than thefirst claimed media item itself.

At block 508, processing logic receives data in a second rights feedfrom a second rights holder. The received data may include a secondclaimed media item, a second digital fingerprint of the second claimedmedia item, a second content management rule that governs actions thatcan be performed with reference to the second claimed media item, secondmetadata associated with the second claimed media item and/or a secondrights claim to the second claimed media item. The second rights claimmay include a second set of rights to the first claimed media item.

In some instances, the received data includes the second claimed mediaitem. Processing logic may then generate a digital fingerprint of thesecond claimed media item. In some instances, the received data includesa digital fingerprint of the second claimed media item rather than thefirst claimed media item itself.

At block 510, processing logic determines that the first claimed mediaitem and the second claimed media item are copies of the same claimedmedia item. This determination may be made by comparing the firstdigital fingerprint to the second digital fingerprint and determiningthat the first digital fingerprint matches the second digitalfingerprint. A match between the two digital fingerprints may bedetermined by determining a similarity value representing a similaritybetween the first digital fingerprint and the second digitalfingerprint, and then determining that the similarity value exceeds asimilarity threshold. Any entry for the first claimed media item mayhave been generated at block 305 responsive to receiving the data forthe first claimed media item. The second digital fingerprint may then becompared to the digital fingerprints in each of the entries for claimedmedia items to identify any matches.

In one embodiment, processing logic first compares the first metadataassociated with the first claimed media item to the second metadataassociated with the second claimed media item. If a match is foundbetween the first and second metadata, then the first digitalfingerprint of the first claimed media item may be compared to thesecond digital fingerprint of the second claimed media item. Matchingmetadata may be determined by determining a similarity between the firstmetadata and the second metadata, and determining that the similarityexceeds a metadata similarity threshold. For example, processing logicmay determine that the first metadata identifies “Single Ladies byBeyoncé”, and that the second metadata identifies, “Artist: Beyoncé;Song: Single Ladies.” These metadata may be sufficiently similar for ametadata match.

At block 515, processing logic determines whether all rights to theclaimed media item are accounted for. For example, the rights to theclaimed media item may include publishing rights, composition rights,sound recording rights and performance rights. Processing logic maydetermine whether each of the publishing rights, composition rights,sound recording rights and performance rights have each been claimed forone or more territories and/or for one or more media sharing platforms.If all of the rights to the claimed media item have been claimed for atleast one territory and/or for at least one media sharing platform, thenthe method proceeds to block 520. If not all of the rights to theclaimed media item have been claimed for any territory and/or for anymedia sharing platform, then the method proceeds to block 530.

At block 520, processing logic determines whether the first rightsmanagement rule or the second rights management rule (or any otherrights management rule of any other rights holder that holds a right tothe claimed media item) prohibits hosting of the claimed media item.This determination may be made for each territory and/or each mediasharing platform for which 100% of rights to the claimed media item havebeen claimed. If any of the content management rules associated with theclaimed media item prohibits hosting of the claimed media item for eachterritory and/or for each media sharing platform for which 100% ofrights to the claimed media item have been claimed, then the methodproceeds to block 530. If all of the content management rules associatedwith the claimed media item (of rights holders that hold a right to theclaimed media item) permit hosting of the claimed media item for atleast one territory and/or for at least one media sharing platform, thenthe method continues to block 525.

At block 525, processing logic determines a set of actions permitted bythe first rights management rule and the second rights management rule(and the rights management rules of all other rights holders for theclaimed media item). The set of actions may include a specific permittedaction for each territory and/or for each media sharing platform.Different actions may be permitted for different territories and/or fordifferent media sharing platforms. Additionally, for any territoriesand/or media sharing platforms for which 100% of rights ownership hasnot been determined, the default action may be to prohibit hosting ofhosted media items that incorporate the claimed media item.

The permitted action for a territory may be determined by combining thepermitted actions for that territory in each content management rule ofa rights holder that claimed a right to the claimed media item in thatterritory. The most restrictive content management rule may govern whatis permitted for the claimed media item in that territory. For example,if 3 rights holders specified that the claimed media item may be hostedand 1 rights holder specified that the claimed media item may not behosted, then the action for that territory could be to not permitviewing of hosted media items incorporating the claimed media item byviewers in the territory. If all of the content management rules for theclaimed media item in the particular territory are in agreement, thenthe agreed upon action for that territory may be included in the set ofactions. This determination may be made for each territory and/or foreach media sharing platform.

At block 530, processing logic determines that hosted media itemscomprising the claimed media item (or a portion of the claimed mediaitem) are not to be viewed on media sharing platforms. This may includeinstructing media sharing platforms to remove hosted media itemscomprising the claimed media item (or a portion of the claimed mediaitem) from the media sharing platforms. Alternatively, media sharingplatforms may simply not permit viewing of the hosted media items untilsuch a time as all rights have been claimed to the claimed media item.Alternatively, media sharing platforms may mute hosted media items thatcomprise the claimed media item (if the claimed media item is an audiomedia item) or media sharing platforms may replace the claimed mediaitem in such hosted media items with other media items (e.g., replace asong in a hosted media item with another song).

In some embodiments, different default actions are determined at block530 when not all rights claims are determined. For example, in someinstances a default action may be to permit hosting of hosted mediaitems incorporating a claimed media item if not all rights to theclaimed media item are determined. In some instances, different defaultactions may be determined for different territories and/or for differentmedia sharing platforms. For example, a default action of permittinghosting may be determined in European countries and a default action ofprohibiting hosting may be determined for the United States.

FIG. 6 is a flow diagram illustrating a method 600 for determiningmatches between claimed media items, according to an embodiment. Atblock 606 of method 600, processing logic receives a message comprisinga) a claimed media item or a first digital fingerprint of the claimedmedia item and b) first metadata of the claimed media item. The messagemay be a message from a rights holder data feed. The message may alsoinclude other information, such as an identifier of the rights holder, acontent management rule associated with the claimed media item, a rightsclaim to the claimed media item, and so on.

At block 610, processing logic may compare the first metadata of thefirst claimed media item to metadata of other claimed media items in amedia rights data store. In embodiments, the first metadata may becompared to the other metadata until it has been compared to the othermetadata of all claimed media items in the media rights data store oruntil a match is found.

At block 612, processing logic determines whether the first metadata h athreshold similarity with the metadata of an additional, claimed mediaitem. If a threshold similarity value is determined, the method maycontinue to block 616. If the determined similarity is below asimilarity threshold, then the method may proceed to block 620.

At block 616, processing logic may determine a possible match betweenthe first claimed media item and the additional claimed media item basedon the similarity between the first metadata and the metadata of theadditional claimed media item. If multiple additional claimed mediaitems had similar metadata to the first claimed media item, thenpossible matches may be determined to each of these additional claimedmedia items.

At block 620, processing logic may generate a first digital fingerprintof the claimed media item. This process may be omitted if the firstdigital fingerprint was received in the message.

At block 626, processing logic may compare the first digital fingerprintto additional digital fingerprints of the additional claimed media item(or additional claimed media items) for which possible matches wereidentified.

At block 630, processing logic determines whether the first digitalfingerprint has a threshold similarity to an additional digitalfingerprint of any of the additional claimed media items for which apossible match was identified. If no match is found between the firstdigital fingerprint and the additional digital fingerprint of one of theadditional claimed media items for which a possible match wasidentified, then processing logic may further compare the first digitalfingerprint to additional digital fingerprints of a remainder of claimedmedia items in the media rights data store until a match is found(threshold level of similarity determined) or a comparison has been madeto the digital fingerprints of all claimed media items. If no match isfound to any claimed media item, the method continues to block 636 and adetermination is made that the first claimed media item is new. A newentry may then be added to the media rights data store for the firstclaimed media item. If a match between the first digital fingerprint andan additional digital fingerprint of an additional claimed media item isdetermined, then the method continue to block 640, and processing logicdetermines that the first claimed media item and the other claimed mediaitem associated with the additional digital fingerprint are copies ofthe same claimed media item. Processing logic may then update an entryfor the additional claimed media item in the media rights data store ininclude the rights claim, metadata, content management rule, etc.included in the message received at block 606.

In some embodiments, the operations of blocks 610-616 may be omitted. Insuch embodiments, the first digital fingerprint may be compared to thedigital fingerprints of claimed media items in the media rights datastore until a match is found or comparisons have been made to thedigital fingerprints of all claimed media items in the media rights datastore.

FIG. 7 is a flow diagram illustrating a method 700 for generating amusic synchronization license, according to an embodiment. At block 705of method 700, processing logic receives a request for a right to attacha sound recording to a video from a user account. The right comprises amusic synchronization license that enables a licensee to legallysynchronize the sound recording to the video.

At block 710, processing logic determines that the request satisfies oneor more music synchronization criteria. Example of music synchronizationcriteria are

At block 714, processing logic determines whether the request satisfiesthe one or more music synchronization criteria. If the criteria aresatisfied, the method continues to block 715. Otherwise, the method endsand no music synchronization license is granted.

At block 715, processing logic generate a music synchronization licensefor the sound recording attached to the video. At block 720, processinglogic generates a first digital fingerprint of the sound recording usinga first digital fingerprinting technique that applies to audio data. Atblock 725, processing logic generates a second digital fingerprint ofthe video using a second digital fingerprinting technique that appliesto video data. At block 730, processing logic generates an entry in adata store for the music synchronization license. The entry includes anidentification of the user account, the first digital fingerprint andthe second digital fingerprint. The user account may be linked to useraccounts of the user on one or more media sharing platforms. The usermay then generate a hosted media item that includes a combination of thevideo and the sound recording and upload that hosted media item to anymedia sharing platform. The media sharing platform may permit the userto upload the hosted media item in view of the music synchronizationlicense.

FIG. 8A is a flow diagram illustrating a method 800 for determining setsof actions permitted for hosted media items, according to an embodiment.At block 802 of method 800, processing logic receives a hosted mediaitem from a media sharing platform. Alternatively, processing logic mayreceive one or more digital fingerprints of the hosted media item. Forexample, processing logic may receive a single digital fingerprint of anaudio portion of the hosted media item, a single digital fingerprint ofa video portion of the hosted media item, a single digital fingerprintthat includes first sets of features associated with the audio portionof the hosted media item and second sets of features associated with thevideo portion of the hosted media item, or a pair of digitalfingerprints including a first digital fingerprint of the audio portionof the hosted media item and a second digital fingerprint of the videoportion of the hosted media item. The hosted media item may have beenuploaded to the media sharing platform by a user of the media sharingplatform and may be associated with a user account of the user. Thehosted media item and/or digital fingerprint(s) may be received in afeed of hosted media items from the media sharing platform. The hostedmedia item and/or digital fingerprint(s) may be received in a messagethat may also include a unique ID assigned to the hosted media item bythe media sharing platform, metadata describing the hosted media item,an upload date and/or time of the hosted media item, and so on.

At block 804, processing logic may generate one or more digitalfingerprints of the hosted media item (e.g., a digital fingerprint ofthe audio portion of the hosted media item, a digital fingerprint of thevideo portion of the hosted media item and/or a digital fingerprint thatincludes features of the audio portion and features of the video portionof the hosted media item).

At block 806, processing logic compares the digital fingerprint (ormultiple digital fingerprints) of the hosted media item to digitalfingerprints of claimed media items. For example, processing logic maycompare a digital fingerprint of the audio portion of the hosted mediaitem to digital fingerprints of claimed audio media items until a matchis found between the digital fingerprint of the audio portion of thehosted media item and a digital fingerprint of a claimed media item orthe digital fingerprint of the audio portion of the hosted media itemhas been compared to the digital fingerprints of all claimed audio mediaitems. Similarly, in some embodiments processing logic may compare adigital fingerprint of the video portion of the hosted media item todigital fingerprints of claimed video media items until a match is foundbetween the digital fingerprint of the video portion of the hosted mediaitem and a digital fingerprint of a claimed media item or the digitalfingerprint of the video portion of the hosted media item has beencompared to the digital fingerprints of all claimed video media items.At block 808, processing logic determines whether the digitalfingerprint of the hosted media item (or one of the digital fingerprintsof the hosted media item) matches an additional digital fingerprint of aclaimed media item. If no matches are found, the method proceeds toblock 820. If a match is found, the method continues to block 810.

At block 820, processing logic determines that there are no rightsholder imposed limits to actions permitted for the hosted media item.The method then continues to block 822.

At block 810, processing logic determines that the hosted media itemcomprises at least a portion of the claimed media item whose digitalfingerprint matched a digital fingerprint of the hosted media item.Processing logic may also determine the portion or portions of theclaimed media item that are included in the hosted media item in someembodiments.

At block 814, processing logic determines whether a digital fingerprintof the hosted media item matched a digital fingerprint of anotherclaimed media item. If so, the method returns to block 810, andprocessing logic determines that the other claimed media item is alsoincorporated into the hosted media item. If no digital fingerprint ofthe hosted media item matched a digital fingerprint of another claimedmedia item, the method continues to block 816.

At block 816, processing logic determines a set of actions permitted foreach of the claimed media items included in the hosted media item. Eachof the claimed media items may have a previously determined set ofactions that are permitted for hosted media items incorporating thoseclaimed media items. The previously determined set of actions for aclaimed media item may have been determined based on an aggregate of thecontent management rules associated with each of the rights holdersholding a right to the claimed media item. The sets of permitted actionsfor each of the claimed media items in the hosted media item may becombined to form an aggregated set of actions that takes into accountthe sets of actions permitted for each of the claimed media items. Forexample, processing logic may compare a first set of actions permittedfor a first claimed media item in the hosted media item to a second setof actions permitted for a second claimed media item in the hosted mediaitem and to a third set of actions permitted for a third claimed mediaitem in the hosted media item. Processing logic may determineoverlapping permitted actions between each of the sets of actions andmay determine an aggregated set of actions for the hosted media itembased on the overlapping permitted actions. Where there are nooverlapping permitted actions for a particular territory and/or mediasharing platform, then the default action for the particular territoryand/or media sharing platform may be to prohibit viewing of the hostedmedia item for that territory.

At block 818, processing logic may determine a subset of the set ofactions that are permitted for the media sharing platform. Differentactions may be permitted for different media sharing platforms. Forexample, the media sharing platform may have an exclusivity agreementwith the rights holders for a claimed media item incorporated into thehosted media item. In that case, the subset of the claimed set ofactions permitted for the media sharing platform may include hosting orsharing permissions (e.g., a permission to stream the hosted media itemto viewers in one or more territories). In another example, anothermedia sharing platform may include an exclusivity agreement for showingthe claimed media item. In that case, the subset of the claimed set ofactions permitted for the media sharing platform may be a null set(e.g., there are no permitted actions with respect to the media sharingplatform).

At block 822, processing logic may generate a unique identifier (ID) forthe hosted media item and add an entry for the hosted media item to ahosted media data store. The entry may include the one or more digitalfingerprints of the hosted media item, the unique ID assigned to thehosted media item by processing logic (e.g., by aggregated media rightsplatform 170), an indicator of one or more claimed media itemsincorporated into the hosted media item, an indicator of the mediasharing platform hosting the hosted media item, metadata describing thehosted media item, the unique ID assigned to the hosted media item bythe media sharing platform, the metadata describing the hosted mediaitem, the upload date and/or time of the hosted media item, and so on.

At block 824, processing logic notifies the media sharing platform ofactions that are permitted to be performed for the hosted media item(e.g., the subset of the set of actions that are permitted for thehosted media item). Processing logic may additionally notify the mediasharing platform of the unique ID assigned to the hosted media item byprocessing logic.

FIG. 8B is a flow diagram illustrating another method 830 fordetermining sets of actions permitted for hosted media items, accordingto an embodiment. At block 832 of method 830, processing logic receives,from a media sharing platform, a message comprising a) a hosted mediaitem or one or more digital fingerprints of the hosted media item and b)an identifier of a user account that uploaded the hosted media item tothe media sharing platform. The message may be received in a feed ofhosted media items from the media sharing platform. The message may alsoinclude a unique ID assigned to the hosted media item by the mediasharing platform, metadata describing the hosted media item, an uploaddate and/or time of the hosted media item, and so on.

At block 834, processing logic may generate one or more digitalfingerprints of the hosted media item (e.g., a digital fingerprint ofthe audio portion of the hosted media item, a digital fingerprint of thevideo portion of the hosted media item and/or a digital fingerprint thatincludes features of the audio portion and features of the video portionof the hosted media item). The operations of block 834 may be omitted ifone or more digital fingerprints of the hosted media item were received.

At block 836, processing logic compares the digital fingerprint (ormultiple digital fingerprints) of the hosted media item to digitalfingerprints of claimed media items. At block 838, processing logicdetermines whether the digital fingerprint of the hosted media item (orone of the digital fingerprints of the hosted media item) matches anadditional digital fingerprint of a claimed media item. If no matchesare found, the method proceeds to block 840. If a match is found, themethod continues to block 842.

At block 840, processing logic determines that there are no rightsholder imposed limits to actions permitted for the hosted media item.The method then continues to block 852.

At block 842, processing logic determines that the hosted media itemcomprises at least a portion of the claimed media item whose digitalfingerprint matched a digital fingerprint of the hosted media item.Processing logic may also determine the portion or portions of theclaimed media item that are included in the hosted media item in someembodiments.

At block 844, processing logic determines whether the user account thatis associated with the hosted media item (e.g., that was used to uploadthe hosted media item) is whitelisted for the claimed media item. If so,then all hosted media items uploaded by the user account thatincorporate the claimed media item (or that are simply copies of theclaimed media item) may have no rights holder imposed limits to actionspermitted for those hosted media items. Accordingly, if the user accountis whitelisted for the claimed media item, then the method proceeds toblock 840. In one embodiment, processing logic determines whether thereare other claimed media items incorporated into the hosted media item.If there are, then the method may proceed to block 846 even if theclaimed media item is whitelisted in order to comply with contentmanagement rules associated with the other claimed media itemincorporated into the hosted media item. If the user account is notwhitelisted for the claimed media item (and there are no other claimedmedia items incorporated into the hosted media item that are notwhitelisted for the user account), then the method continues to block846.

At block 846, processing logic determines a set of actions permitted forthe claimed media item included in the hosted media item. The set ofactions for the claimed media item may be determined based on anaggregate of the content management rules associated with each of therights holders holding a right to the claimed media item. At block 850,processing logic may determine a subset of the set of actions that arepermitted for the media sharing platform. At block 852, processing logicmay generate a unique identifier (ID) for the hosted media item and addan entry for the hosted media item to a hosted media data store. Theentry may include the one or more digital fingerprints of the hostedmedia item, the unique ID assigned to the hosted media item byprocessing logic (e.g., by aggregated media rights platform 170), anindicator of one or more claimed media items incorporated into thehosted media item, an indicator of the media sharing platform hostingthe hosted media item, metadata describing the hosted media item, theunique ID assigned to the hosted media item by the media sharingplatform, the metadata describing the hosted media item, the upload dateand/or time of the hosted media item, and so on.

At block 854, processing logic notifies the media sharing platform ofactions that are permitted to be performed for the hosted media item(e.g., the subset of the set of actions that are permitted for thehosted media item). Processing logic may additionally notify the mediasharing platform of the unique ID assigned to the hosted media item byprocessing logic.

FIG. 8C is a flow diagram illustrating a method 860 for grouping hostedmedia items, according to an embodiment. Method 860 may be performedafter a request is received to perform an action on a hosted media itemand/or other similar hosted media items (e.g., other copies of the samehosted media item or other hosted media items grouped with the hostedmedia item). Method 860 may alternatively be performed for a hostedmedia item when it is added to a hosted media data store (e.g., when amedia sharing platform first provides information on the hosted mediaitem to aggregated media rights platform 170).

At block 862 of method 860, processing logic receives, from a mediasharing platform, a message comprising a) a hosted media item or one ormore digital fingerprints of the hosted media item and b) an identifierof a user account that uploaded the hosted media item to the mediasharing platform. Alternatively, the message may simply include a uniqueID assigned to the hosted media item. The message may be received in afeed of hosted media items from the media sharing platform.Alternatively, the message may be received via a rights holder interfaceor platform interface. In one embodiment, the message includes a eithera digital fingerprint that is based on both audio and video portions ofthe hosted media item or includes a separate digital fingerprint of theaudio portion of the hosted media item and digital fingerprint of thevideo portion of the hosted media item. The message may also include aunique ID assigned to the hosted media item by the media sharingplatform, metadata describing the hosted media item, an upload dateand/or time of the hosted media item, and so on.

At block 864, processing logic may generate one or more digitalfingerprints of the hosted media item (e.g., a digital fingerprint ofthe audio portion of the hosted media item, a digital fingerprint of thevideo portion of the hosted media item and/or a digital fingerprint thatincludes features of the audio portion and features of the video portionof the hosted media item). The operations of block 864 may be omitted ifone or more digital fingerprints of the hosted media item were receivedor if an entry for the hosted media item already exists and includes oneor more digital fingerprints of the hosted media item.

At block 866, processing logic compares the digital fingerprint (ormultiple digital fingerprints) of the hosted media item to digitalfingerprints of claimed media items. At block 868, processing logicdetermines one or more claimed media items included in the hosted mediaitem (e.g., based on a match between a digital fingerprint of the hostedmedia item and a digital fingerprint of the claimed media item).Alternatively, claimed media items incorporated into the hosted mediaitem may have already been determined and noted in an entry for thehosted media item.

At block 880, processing logic determines other hosted media items onthe media sharing platform and/or on other media sharing platforms thatcomprise the same one or more claimed media items that are included inthe hosted media item. Processing logic may then compare digitalfingerprints of the hosted media item to digital fingerprints of theother hosted media items that also include at least one of the one ormore claimed media items that are incorporated into the hosted mediaitem. At block 882, processing logic determines whether a match is foundbetween the hosted media item and one or more other hosted media itemshosted on other media sharing platforms (or on the same media sharingplatform). A match between hosted media items may be found byidentifying a) a first match between a first digital fingerprint of theaudio portion of the hosted media item and a second digital fingerprintof the audio portion of another hosted media item and b) a second matchbetween a third digital fingerprint of the video portion of the hostedmedia item and a fourth digital fingerprint of the video portion of theother hosted media item. Alternatively, a match between hosted mediaitems may be found by identifying a match between a first digitalfingerprint of the hosted media item that is based on both the audio andvideo portions of the hosted media item and a second digital fingerprintof the additional hosted media item that is based on both the audio andvideo portions of the other hosted media item. A match between hostedmedia items may be identified if the digital fingerprints of those twohosted media items match for at least a first threshold percentage ofthe two hosted media items. For example, if the audio and video portionsof the two hosted media items match for 90% of the two hosted mediaitems, then those two hosted media items may be determined to match. Ifno matches are found, the method proceeds to block 886. If a match isfound, the method continues to block 888.

At block 884, processing logic determines that the hosted media item andthe one or more other hosted media items (which may be hosted by othermedia sharing platforms) are copies of a same media item. The method maythen continue to block 888.

At block 886, processing logic may determine whether there is a partialmatch between the hosted media item and one or more additional hostedmedia items. A partial match between hosted media items may beidentified if the digital fingerprints of those two hosted media itemsmatch for at least a second threshold percentage of the two hosted mediaitems, where the second threshold percentage is lower than the firstthreshold percentage. For example, if the audio and video portions ofthe two hosted media items match for 50% of the two hosted media items(determined based on comparison of the digital fingerprints of the twohosed media items), then those two hosted media items may be determinedto be a partial match. If no partial matches are found, the methodproceeds to block 890. If a partial match is found, the method maycontinue to block 888.

At block 888, processing logic determines a first group that includesthe hosted media item and the one or more other hosted media items thatare either partial matches with the hosted media item or full matcheswith the partial media item. Each media item in the group may include anindicator of which other hosted media items in the group are fullmatches with the media item and which other hosted media items in thegroup are partial matches with the media item. In one embodiment, agroup is generated that contains hosted media items that are fullmatches with one another. In one embodiment, another group is generatedthat contains hosted media items that are partial matches with oneanother.

At block 890, processing logic may determine properties of the hostedmedia item. Examples of properties include claimed media itemsincorporated into the hosted media item, a genre or class of the hostedmedia item, demographics of viewers of the hosted media item, and so on.At block 892, processing logic determines one or more additional groupsthat include the hosted media item and one or more additional hostedmedia items that share one or more properties with the hosted mediaitem. For example, a group may include the hosted media item (which mayinclude a first portion of a particular song synced with a first portionof a particular video) and a second hosted media item that may include asecond portion of the particular song synced with the first portion ofthe particular video or a second portion of the particular video. Eventhrough the hosted media item and the second hosted media item don'tinclude any portions that have both matching audio and matching video,these two hosted media items may still be grouped together since theyeach contain the same video and the same song.

FIG. 9A is a flow diagram illustrating a method 900 for determiningrightful ownership of hosted media items, according to an embodiment.Method 900 may be performed after a request is received to perform anaction on a hosted media item and/or other similar hosted media items(e.g., other copies of the same hosted media item or other hosted mediaitems grouped with the hosted media item). Method 900 may alternativelybe performed for a hosted media item when it is added to a hosted mediadata store (e.g., when a media sharing platform first providesinformation on the hosted media item to aggregated media rights platform170).

At block 905 of method 900, processing logic receives, from a mediasharing platform, a message comprising a) a hosted media item or one ormore digital fingerprints of the hosted media item and b) an identifierof a user account that uploaded the hosted media item to the mediasharing platform. Alternatively, the message may simply include a uniqueID assigned to the hosted media item. The message may be received in afeed of hosted media items from the media sharing platform.Alternatively, the message may be received via a rights holder interfaceor platform interface. The message may also include a unique ID assignedto the hosted media item by the media sharing platform, metadatadescribing the hosted media item, an upload date and/or time of thehosted media item, and so on.

At block 910, processing logic may generate one or more digitalfingerprints of the hosted media item (e.g., a digital fingerprint ofthe audio portion of the hosted media item, a digital fingerprint of thevideo portion of the hosted media item and/or a digital fingerprint thatincludes features of the audio portion and features of the video portionof the hosted media item). The operations of block 834 may be omitted ifone or more digital fingerprints of the hosted media item were receivedor if an entry for the hosted media item already exists and includes oneor more digital fingerprints of the hosted media item.

At block 915, processing logic generates an entry for the hosted mediaitem in a hosted media data store. The entry may include in ID for thehosted media item assigned by the processing logic, an ID for the mediasharing platform, another ID for the hosted media item that was assignedby the media sharing platform, an indication of the first user account,the one or more digital fingerprints, and so on.

At block 920, processing logic compares the digital fingerprint (ormultiple digital fingerprints) of the hosted media item to digitalfingerprints of claimed media items. At block 925, processing logicdetermines one or more claimed media items that are included in thehosted media item based on the comparison of the digital fingerprint(s)of the hosted media item to digital fingerprints of the claimed mediaitems. Alternatively, claimed media items incorporated into the hostedmedia item may have already been determined and noted in an entry forthe hosted media item.

At block 930, processing logic compares the digital fingerprint (ormultiple digital fingerprints) of the hosted media item to digitalfingerprints of other hosted media items that also include at least oneof the one or more claimed media items incorporated into the hostedmedia item. For example, processing logic may compare a first digitalfingerprint of the audio portion of the hosted media item to a seconddigital fingerprint of the audio portion of a second hosted media itemand may further compare a third digital fingerprint of the video portionof the hosted media item to a fourth digital fingerprint of the videoportion of the second hosted media item. At block 935, processing logicdetermines whether the digital fingerprints of the hosted media itemmatches the additional digital fingerprints of another hosted mediaitem. If no matches are found, the method ends. If a match is foundbetween the first hosted media item and a second hosted media item(e.g., a full match between the two hosted media items), the methodcontinues to block 940.

At block 940, processing logic determines that the first hosted mediaitem is a copy of the second hosted media item. At block 945, processinglogic determines a second user account associated with the second hostedmedia item. The second hosted media item may have its own entry in thehosted media data store, and that entry may include the digitalfingerprint(s) of the second hosted media item, an identifier of themedia sharing platform hosting the second hosted media item, anindicator of the second user account that uploaded the second hostedmedia item, a unique ID of the second hosted media item assigned by themedia sharing platform hosting it, a unique ID of the second hostedmedia item generated by the aggregated media rights platform, and so on.Accordingly, the second user account may be determined from the entryfor the second hosted media item.

At block 950, processing logic determines whether the first user accountis linked to the second user account. Aggregated media rights platformmay maintain a data store of linked user accounts between differentmedia sharing platforms. Processing logic may query the data store todetermine any user accounts linked to the first user account. If thequery returns an answer that includes the second user account, then itmay be determined that these two user accounts are linked and are ownedby the same entity. If the query returns an answer that does not includethe second user account, then it may be determined that these two useraccounts are not linked. Alternatively, the query to the data store maybe an inquiry as to whether the second user account is linked to thefirst user account rather than an open ended query. In such anembodiment, the response may be a binary response (e.g., a yes or noanswer). If the two user accounts are linked, the method ends. If thetwo user accounts are not linked, the method continues to block 952.

At block 952, processing logic may determine a third user account on thefirst media sharing platform that is linked to the second user account.This determination may have been made based on the response returnedfrom the query to the data store at block 950. Alternatively, a separatequery may be made to the data store to determine the third user accountthat is lined to the second user account. At block 954, processing logicmay update the entry for the first hosted media item by removing thefirst user account from the entry and adding the second user account tothe entry. This may effectively automatically transfer ownership of thefirst hosted media item to the third user account. Processing logic mayadditionally send a notice to the first media sharing platform notifyingit that the ownership of the first hosted media item should betransferred from the first user account to the third user account.

FIG. 9B is a flow diagram illustrating a method 960 for automaticallyuploading content to media sharing platforms, according to anembodiment. At block 960 of method 900, processing logic receives arequest to link two or more user accounts across media sharingplatforms. Each user account may be associated with a different entry ina data store. The request may indicate each of the user accounts to link(e.g., a first user account on a first media sharing platform and asecond user account on a second media sharing platform). Additionally,the request may include login, password and/or other credentials foreach of the user accounts to link. At block 964, processing logic linksthe first user account on the first media sharing platform to the seconduser account on the second media sharing platform (e.g., by addingreferences between the user accounts in a database).

At block 966, processing logic receives a hosted media item or one ormore digital fingerprints of the hosted media item from the first mediasharing platform. The hosted media item or digital fingerprint(s) may bereceived along with other information such as a unique ID assigned tothe hosted media item by the first media sharing platform and/or anidentifier of a first user account that uploaded the hosted media itemto the first media sharing platform.

At block 969, processing logic may generate one or more digitalfingerprints from audio data and/or video data in the hosted media item.The operations of block 969 may be omitted if the one or more digitalfingerprints were received.

At block 970, processing logic generates a first entry for the firsthosted media item in a hosted media data store. The entry may include anID of the first hosted media item assigned by the media sharingplatform, an ID of the first hosted media item assigned by theaggregated media rights platform, an ID of the first media sharingplatform, an indication of the first user account, the one or moredigital fingerprints, and/or other data.

At block 972, processing logic automatically uploads the media item tothe second media sharing platform using the second user account. Thesecond media sharing platform may then return a unique ID assigned tothe second hosted media item by the second media sharing platform. Atblock 974, processing logic generates a second entry for the secondhosted media item in the hosted media data store. The second entry mayinclude the ID for the second hosted media item generated by the secondmedia, sharing platform, an ID generated for the second hosted mediaitem generated by the aggregated media rights platform, an ID of thesecond media sharing platform, an indication of the second user account,the one or more digital fingerprints, and/or other data.

Method 960 enables a user to upload a media item to a single mediasharing platform to trigger the automatic upload of that media item tomultiple other media sharing platforms. This can reduce the time andcomplexity associated with posting media items to multiple media sharingplatforms. Additionally, the hosted media items uploaded to each of themedia sharing platforms may all be associated with user accounts thatare linked together. A user interface of the aggregated media rightsplatform may enable an owner of the linked user accounts to viewaggregated information about their uploaded content on multipledifferent media sharing platforms.

FIG. 10 is a flow diagram illustrating a method 1000 for determiningsets of actions permissible for hosted media items, according to anembodiment. At block 1005 of method 1000, processing logic receives arequest from a media sharing platform for authorization to host a hostedmedia item uploaded to the media sharing platform. The request mayinclude a copy of the hosted media item and/or one or more digitalfingerprints of the hosted media item. The request may additionallyinclude metadata describing the hosted media item, an ID of the mediasharing platform, a user account associated with the hosted media item,a unique ID assigned to the hosted media item by the media sharingplatform, and/or other information.

At block 1010, processing logic determines whether the request includesone or more digital fingerprints. If the request does not include anydigital fingerprints (but included the hosted media item), the methodcontinues to block 1015. If the request included one or more digitalfingerprints (and not the hosted media item), then the method proceedsto block 1025.

At block 1015, processing logic may generate a first digital fingerprintfrom an audio component of the hosted media item using a first digitalfingerprinting algorithm. At block 1020, processing logic may generate asecond digital fingerprint from a video component of the hosted mediaitem using a second digital fingerprinting algorithm. Alternatively, asingle digital fingerprint may be generated of the hosted media item,where the single digital fingerprint includes first features from theaudio component and second features from the video component.

At block 1025, processing logic generates an entry for the hosted mediaitem in the hosted media data store. At block 1030, processing logic maycompare the first and second digital fingerprints to digitalfingerprints of music synchronization licenses. At block 1035,processing logic may determine whether a match is found based on aresult of the comparing. If a match is found between the first digitalfingerprint and a third digital fingerprint associated with a musicsynchronization license and between the second digital fingerprints anda fourth digital associated with the music synchronization license, thenthe method continues to block 1040. An owner of the synchronizationlicense may have generated a sync between audio data and video data, andthe third digital fingerprint may be of the audio data and the fourthdigital fingerprint may be of the video data. If no match is identified,the method proceeds to block 1050.

At block 1040, processing logic determines that a music synchronizationlicense with a pair of digital fingerprints that matches the first andsecond digital fingerprints applies to the hosted media item. At block1035, processing logic determines whether the music synchronizationlicense (sync license) applies to the media sharing platform. The synclicense may apply to all media sharing platforms or only to particularmedia sharing platforms. If the sync license applies to the mediasharing platform, the method continues to block 1045. Otherwise themethod proceeds to block 1050.

At block 1045, processing logic notifies the media sharing platform thatthe synchronization license applies to the hosted media item.

At block 1050, processing logic determines a set of actions permittedfor the hosted media item as described earlier in this disclosure. Atblock 1055, processing logic notifies the media sharing platform of theset of actions.

FIG. 11A is a flow diagram illustrating a method 1100 for determining anaction to be performed for a hosted media item to be viewed by a viewer,according to an embodiment. At block 1102 of method 1100, processinglogic receives, from a media sharing platform, a request to share ahosted media item that is hosted by that media sharing platform. Therequest may be a request to share the hosted media item with a clientdevice of a viewer in a particular territory. The request may include aunique ID of the hosted media item assigned by the media sharingplatform, a unique ID of the hosted media item assigned by theaggregated media rights platform, an ID of the media sharing platform,an indication of a territory in which the client device is located, anindication of a user account associated with the hosted media item, andso on.

At block 1104, processing logic determines a set of actions permittedfor the hosted media item based on the unique ID. The hosted media itemmay have previously been analyzed by the aggregated media rightsplatform shortly after the hosted media item was uploaded to the mediasharing platform. Based on this analysis, the aggregated media rightsplatform may have determined a set of actions permissible for the hostedmedia item based on the claimed media item or items incorporated intothe hosted media item and the content management rules associated withthose claimed media items. Processing logic may again perform thisanalysis at block 1104 by reviewing the content management rules of theclaimed media item or items incorporated into the hosted media item.Content management rules may be chanted by rights holders at any time.Accordingly, it can be beneficial to recheck the content managementrules and re-determine the set of permitted actions for the hosted mediaitem on a periodic basis (e.g., daily, weekly, each time the hostedmedia item is to be viewed, or on some other basis).

At block 1106, processing logic determines, from the set of actions, anaction permitted for the media sharing platform and the territory. Theaction may be “do not share/show” or “share/show,” or some other action,At block 1108, processing logic notifies the media sharing platform ofthe action to be performed for the hosted media item with respect to theclient device in the territory. Responsive to receiving the notice, themedia sharing platform may stream or otherwise provide the hosted mediaitem to the client device (e.g., if the action was share/show).Alternatively, the media sharing platform may not provide the hostedmedia item to the client device if the action was “do not share/show.”Another possible operation that the media sharing platform may performif the action was “do not share/show” are remove one or more claimedmedia items from the hosted media item and then show the hosted mediaitem, where the one or more claimed media items were those with contentmanagement rules prohibiting the sharing of the hosted media item.Another possible operation that the media sharing platform if the actionwas “do not share/show” is to overwrite or dub over the claimed mediaitems prohibiting the sharing or muting the hosted media item (assumingthat the claimed media items incorporated into the hosted media item areaudio media items).

FIG. 11B is a flow diagram illustrating another method 1130 fordetermining an action to be performed for a hosted media item to beviewed by a viewer, according to an embodiment. At block 1132 of method1130, processing logic receives, from a media sharing platform, arequest to share a hosted media item that is hosted by that mediasharing platform. The request may be a request to share the hosted mediaitem with a client device of a viewer in a particular territory. Therequest may include a unique ID of the hosted media item assigned by themedia sharing platform, a unique ID of the hosted media item assigned bythe aggregated media rights platform, an ID of the media sharingplatform, an indication of a territory in which the client device islocated, an indication of a user account associated with the hostedmedia item, and so on.

At block 1134, processing logic determines whether the hosted media itemis covered by a music synchronization license. If the hosted media itemis not covered by a music synchronization license, the method proceedsto block 1142. If the hosted media item is covered by a musicsynchronization license, then the method continues to block 1136.

At block 1136, processing logic determines whether the musicsynchronization license applies to the media sharing platform. If themusic, synchronization license does not apply to the media sharingplatform, the method proceeds to block 1142. If the musicsynchronization license does apply to the media sharing platform, thenthe method continues to block 1138.

At block 1138, processing logic determines whether the musicsynchronization license applies to the particular territory of theviewer. If the music synchronization license does not apply to theparticular territory, the method proceeds to block 1142. If the musicsynchronization license does apply to the particular territory, then themethod continues to block 1140.

A music synchronization license may be associated with a permitted totalnumber of views of the hosted media item aggregated between multiplemedia sharing platforms (view threshold). Accordingly, at block 1140,processing logic may determine the total number of views of the hostedmedia item aggregated between the multiple media sharing platforms. Atblock 1144, processing logic determines whether the total number ofviews meets or exceeds the view threshold. If the total number of viewsmeets or exceeds the view threshold, then the method proceeds to block1142. If the total number of views is below the view threshold, then themethod continues to block 1146.

At block 1142, processing logic determines an action to be performed forthe hosted media item based on standard content management rules (e.g.,by the content management rules of claimed media items incorporated intothe claimed media item).

At block 1146, processing logic determines an action to be performed forthe hosted media item based on the music synchronization license. Themusic synchronization license may permit sharing/viewing of the hostedmedia item without payment of any royalties to rights holders that holdone or more rights to claimed media items in the hosted media item.

At block 1148, processing logic notifies the media sharing platform ofthe action to be performed with regards to the hosted media item. Theaction may be to provide the hosted media item to the client device inthe territory or not to provide the hosted media item to the clientdevice, for example.

FIG. 12A is a flow diagram illustrating a method 1200 for performingactions for hosted media items across multiple media sharing platforms,according to an embodiment. At block 1205 of method 1200, processinglogic receives a request to remove, claim or perform another action fora first hosted media item on a first media sharing platform. The requestmay be received from a rights holder that holds one or more rights to aclaimed media item at least partially incorporated into the hosted mediaitem. In an example, the rights holder may see the first hosted mediaitem on the media sharing platform, and in response may generate arequest to claim a claimed media item incorporated into that hostedmedia item and/or to take down or remove the hosted media item from themedia sharing platform.

At block 1208, processing logic adds an indicator of ownership of therights holder to a first entry for the first hosted media item in ahosted media data store. Processing logic may additionally generate acontent management rule that reflects the requested action. For example,if the requested action was to remove the hosted media item, then agenerated content management rule may be to not permit hosting of hostedmedia items that contain the claimed media item. At block 1210,processing logic may send a notice for the first hosted media item tothe first media sharing platform. The notice may be based on the actionor actions specified in the request received at block 1205. For example,if the request was a request to remove the hosted media item, then thenotice may be a takedown notice. If the request was a request to claim aright to the hosted media item, then the notice may be a notice ofrights assignment. Alternatively, no notice may be sent to the mediasharing platform if the request was a request to claim ownership of aclaimed media item in the hosted media item.

At block 1215, processing logic determines that the request indicatesthat automatic actions should be taken of any copies of the hosted mediaitem on other media sharing platforms. At block 1220, processing logicmay determine other hosted media items on other media sharing platformsthat also comprise at least a portion of the claimed media item. Such adetermination may be made, for example, by running a query on a hostedmedia data store, where the query is a search for entries with anindicator that they contain the claimed media item. Such an indicatormay be a field in one or more entries for hosted media items in the datastore that indicate the claimed media item (e.g, that include a valuecorresponding to a unique ID of the claimed media item).

At block 1225, processing logic may compare one or more digitalfingerprints of the first hosted media item to one or more digitalfingerprints of other hosted media items that also include at least aportion of the claimed media item. Alternatively, the operations ofblock 1220 may be omitted, and at block 1225 the processing logic maycompare the one or more digital fingerprints of the first hosted mediaitem to one or more digital fingerprints of each other hosted media itemin the hosted media data store.

At block 1230, processing logic determines whether other hosted mediaitems with a matching digital fingerprint (if only one digitalfingerprint is used) or two matching digital fingerprints (if twodigital fingerprints are used, where one is based on audio features ofthe hosted media item and the other is based on video features of thehosted media item) are identified. If such hosted media items areidentified, the method continues to block 1232. Otherwise the methodends.

At block 1232, processing logic may add indicators of ownership of therights holder to additional entries for the other hosted media items inthe hosted media data store. At block 1235, processing logic mayautomatically send notices for each of the identified other hosted mediaitems to the media sharing platforms hosting those other hosted mediaitems. The actions may be the same action that was indicated for thespecified hosted media item at block 1210.

FIG. 12B is a flow diagram illustrating another method 1240 forperforming actions to hosted media items across multiple media sharingplatforms, according to an embodiment. At block 1242 of method 1240,processing logic receives a request to remove, claim or perform anotheraction for a first hosted media item on a first media sharing platform.The request may be received from a rights holder that holds one or morerights to a claimed audio recording at least partially incorporated intothe hosted media item. In an example, the rights holder may see thefirst hosted media item on the media sharing platform, and in responsemay generate a request to claim the audio recording incorporated intothat hosted media item and/or to take down or remove the hosted mediaitem from the media sharing platform.

At block 1244, processing logic may send a notice for the first hostedmedia item to the first media sharing platform. The notice may be basedon the action or actions specified in the request received at block1242. For example, if the request was a request to remove the hostedmedia item, then the notice may be a takedown notice. If the request wasa request to claim a right to the hosted media item, then the notice maybe a notice of rights assignment. Alternatively, no notice may be sentto the media sharing platform if the request was a request to claimownership of a claimed media item in the hosted media item.

At block 1246, processing logic determines that the request indicatesthat automatic actions should be taken of other hosted media items thatcomprise the audio recording and a video or image also incorporated intothe hosted media item. At block 1248, processing logic may determineother hosted media items on other media sharing platforms that alsocomprise at least a portion of the claimed media item. At block 1250,processing logic may determine a digital fingerprint of the video orimage included in the hosted media item. At block 1252, processing logiccompares a digital fingerprint of the video or images of other hostedmedia items to the digital fingerprint of the video or image that was atleast partially incorporated into the first hosted media item.

At block 1254, processing logic determines whether other hosted mediaitems also include portions of the video or image. If none of the otherhosted media items includes a portion of the video or image, the methodends. If another hosted media item also includes a portion of the videoor image, the method continues to block 1256, and notices mayautomatically be sent for each of the identified other hosted mediaitems to the media sharing platforms hosting those other hosted mediaitems.

FIG. 13A is a flow diagram illustrating a method 1300 for performingactions to covers of claimed media items across multiple media sharingplatforms, according to an embodiment. At block 1302 of method 1300,processing logic receives a request to perform an action with respect toa first hosed media item on a first media sharing platform. The requestmay be a request to remove the hosted media item from the media sharingplatform, to claim a right to the hosted media item (e.g., to a claimedmedia item incorporated into the hosted media item), to monetize thehosted media item, and so on. The request may be received from a rightsholder that holds one or more rights to an audio recording at leastpartially incorporated into the hosted media item.

At block 1304, processing logic sends an appropriate notice (e.g., atakedown notice, a notice of ownership, etc.) for the first hosted mediaitem to the first media sharing platform.

At block 1306, processing logic determines that the first hosted mediaitem is a cover of a claimed media item. In an embodiment, processinglogic may determine features of one or more segments of the hosted mediaitem that is to be identified. Features may include digitalfingerprints, which may be beat-synchronized digital fingerprints.Beat-synchronized digital fingerprints may capture features such aspitch, timbre, and rhythm that have been normalized to betempo-invariant. The benefit to identifying features and generatingbeat-synchronized digital fingerprints is that comparisons may be madebetween cover works and original works even when the tempo,instrumentation, and vocals type vary significantly between the twoworks. Beat identification may be used to identify one or more segmentswithin an unidentified hosted media item. Normalization may includedown-scaling features to an individual beat.

A segment of the unidentified hosted item may be received and may beanalyzed with respect to a set of features including loudness, pitch,beat, timbre, rhythm, brightness, spectral bandwidth, energy in one ormore spectral bands, spectral steadiness, Mel-frequency cepstralcoefficients (MFCCs), and so on. Processing logic may determine valuesfor some or all of these features, and may generate a feature vector forthe segment that includes the determined feature values. The featurevector may be a digital fingerprint of one or more segments of thehosted media item.

The set of features (e.g., the feature vector(s) or digitalfingerprint(s)) determined by the processing logic may be used todetermine whether the set of features of the unidentified hosted mediaitem is similar to a defined set of features for a known claimed mediaitem. For example, the set of features of the unidentified hosted mediaitem may be compared to sets of defined features (digital fingerprints)of multiple known claimed media items. The claimed media items may havebeen fingerprinted using a same fingerprinting algorithm used togenerate the digital fingerprint of the hosted media item. Thefingerprinting algorithm may be one that generates beat-synchronizeddigital fingerprints in an embodiment.

In one implementation, a comparison between a digitalfingerprint/feature vector of the unknown hosted media item and adigital fingerprint/feature vector of a known claimed media item may beperformed by computing self-similarity matrices for each of the featuretypes for the unidentified hosted media item and the known claimed mediaitem. Self-similarity matrices may be used to determine similarities offeatures within a media item. In an embodiment, self-similarity matricesmay be generated by calculating Euclidean distances between featurevectors within the media item, Additionally, cross-similarity matricesmay be computed for each feature type between the unidentified hosteditem and the known claimed media item. Cross-similarity matrices may beused to measure the similarities between the two different media items.In an embodiment, cross-similarity matrices may be generated bycalculating Euclidean distances between possible pairs of featurevectors from each media item. In other embodiments, cross-similaritymatrices may be calculated differently depending on the feature vectors.Generation of cross-similarity matrices and self-similarity matrices arefurther described herein.

The cross-similarity matrices and the set of self-similarity matricesmay then be fused using Similarity Network Fusion (SNF) techniques. SNFis a computational method for data integration by constructing a samplesimilarity network for each of the data types and then iterativelyintegrating the networks using network fusion. The resulting matricesmay then be transformed into a binary cross-recurrence plot, which is aplot showing, at a given moment of time, the instances an occurrence ofwhere a feature occurs. In one implementation, the binarycross-recurrence plot may then be scored using a Smith-Watermanalgorithm to determine a similarity score between the unidentified mediacontent item and the known media content item. In other implementations,the processing logic may implement other matching algorithms todetermine the similarity between the features/digital fingerprints ofthe hosted media item and the features/digital fingerprints of the knownclaimed media item.

In one embodiment, for each comparison of the feature vectors(s)/digitalfingerprint(s) of an unknown hosted media item to the featurevectors)/digital fingerprint(s) of a known claimed media item, a featuresimilarity score is computed. The feature similarity score may indicatea level of similarity between the audio features of the unknown hostedmedia item and the audio features of the known claimed media item.

In an embodiment, the processing logic may identify descriptive textstored in metadata of the unidentified hosted media item. Thedescriptive text may be normalized and processed using one or more wordmatching algorithms and/or trigram matching algorithms. Textnormalization is a process of transforming text into a canonical form.For instance, different ways of writing the term “two hundred dollars”may include “$200”, “200 bucks”, and “2 Benjamins.” Text normalizationmay process the inputting text, such as the examples described, andtransform each of them into the canonical form of “two hundred dollars.”Normalized descriptive information associated with an unknown hostedmedia item may be compared to normalized descriptive informationassociated with known claimed media items to determine whether theunidentified hosted media item is a cover of a known claimed media itemand/or to narrow identification of a hosted media item as a cover to asubset of the known claimed media items. For example, the unidentifiedhosted media item may be associated with metadata comprising thedescription of “Rolling Stones.” This metadata may be used to determinea subset of known media content items that match the artist RollingStones. Processing resources may be conserved when identifying anunidentified media content item if the pool of known claimed media itemsto compare against is narrowed to a subset of known claimed media items.

In an embodiment, processing logic may identify descriptive text frommetadata of the hosted media item. The Processing logic may compare themetadata associated with the hosted media item to additional metadataassociated with a known claimed media item. Using the previous exampleof metadata containing “Rolling Stones,” the processing logic maycompare the unidentified media content item metadata to the index ofknown claimed media items in order to determine a subset of similarknown claimed media items that have associated metadata that is similarto the metadata of the unidentified media content item, “RollingStones.”

In one embodiment, for each comparison of the metadata of a hosted mediaitem to the metadata of a known claimed media item, a metadatasimilarity score is computed. The metadata similarity score may indicatea level of similarity between the metadata of the hosted media item andthe metadata of the known claimed media item. In an embodiment,processing logic may be invoked to determine whether the unidentifiedhosted item is a cover of a known claimed media item. The processinglogic may use either or both of the similarity determinations (e.g., thefeature similarity score and/or the metadata similarity score) and themetadata matching logic.

At block 1308, processing logic sends an inquiry to the rights holderasking if the same action (e.g., rights claim or takedown) that wasapplied to the first hosted media item should also be applied for othercovers of the claimed media item on media sharing platforms. At block1309, processing logic receives a response. At block 1310, processinglogic determines whether the response indicated to perform the sameaction for all covers. If the response included an instruction not toapply the action to all covers, the method ends. If the responseincluded an instruction to apply the action to all covers, the methodproceeds to block 1312.

At block 1312, processing logic determines other hosted media items thatare also covers of the claimed media item. The other covers may bedetermined in the same manner as described above. Each of the covers maybe determined on-the-fly or may have been determined beforehand, andentries in a hosted media item data store may mark the associated hostedmedia items as being covers of the particular claimed media item.Accordingly, processing logic may determine which hosted media itemswere flagged as being covers of the claimed media item. Each entryfurther includes a unique hosted media item ID and an indicator of amedia sharing platform hosting the associated hosted media item. Atblock 1314, processing logic automatically sends notices to each of themedia sharing platforms hosting the identified hosted media itemsregarding actions to perform for the hosted media items. The notices mayinclude unique IDs used by the media sharing platforms to identify thehosted media items. The media sharing platforms may then takeappropriate action. For example, processing logic may send takedownnotices to the media sharing platforms hosting each of the other coversof the claimed media item.

FIG. 13B is a flow diagram illustrating a method 1350 for performingactions to media items sharing properties across multiple media sharingplatforms, according to an embodiment. At block 1352 of method 1350,processing logic receives a request to perform an action with respect toa first hosed media item on a first media sharing platform. The requestmay be a request to remove the hosted media item from the media sharingplatform, to claim a right to the hosted media item (e.g., to a claimedmedia item incorporated into the hosted media item), to monetize thehosted media item, and so on. The request may be received from a rightsholder that holds one or more rights to an audio recording at leastpartially incorporated into the hosted media item.

At block 1354, processing logic may send an appropriate notice (e.g., atakedown notice, a notice of ownership, etc.) for the first hosted mediaitem to the first media sharing platform. Processing logic mayadditionally update an entry for a claimed media item in the hostedmedia item according to the request. This may include updating a contentmanagement rule of the claimed media item.

At block 1356, processing logic determines one or more properties of thefirst hosted media item. In one embodiment, processing logic determineswhether the hosted media item contains music. In one embodiment,processing logic determines a classification for the hosted media item.In one embodiment, a set of features of the hosted media item isdetermined. In one embodiment, the set of features that are extractedare the set of features which optimally determine the likelihood that amedia item belongs to a classification. For example, the features thatare extracted from the media item may include the loudness envelope ofthe audio component of the media item to determine the loudness at eachmoment in time. Features representative of the brightness of the audio(e.g., bass and treble component of the audio) may also be extracted. Aderivative of the loudness envelope may be taken to identify the changein the loudness at each time. An FFT algorithm identifying othercharacteristics and an MFCC algorithm may be applied to identify thefrequency domain characteristics and the clustered features of the mediacontent item. Features may be extracted at an interval (e.g., 1 secondinterval, 0.5 second interval, 0.10 second interval). In anotherexample, fifty two features may be extracted at multiple time intervalsand used to generate a feature vector. Alternatively, more or fewerfeatures may be extracted and used to generate a feature vector.

Processing logic may analyze the set of features using machine learningprofiles for a first and second class of media content items. In oneembodiment, a single machine learning profile (also referred to hereinas a media classification profile or media alteration profile) maycontain models for multiple different classifications of media contentitems. Alternatively, a separate machine learning profile may be usedfor each model. In one embodiment, the machine learning profilescomprise a machine learning model and other associated metadata. Theextracted features of the media item are supplied to the machinelearning model(s) (e.g., as a feature vector) and an output may begenerated indicating the likelihood that the media item matches theclassification of the machine learning profile. For example, a mediaclassification profile may identify a first percentage chance that amedia item comprises audio features representative of music and a secondpercentage change that the media item comprises audio featuresrepresentative of a lack of music.

If it is determined that the media content item belongs to the firstclass of media content items (i.e., containing music), processing logicmay process the features of the hosted media item using one or morefurther machine learning models to determine sub classifications for thehosted media item (e.g., rock, heavy metal, classical, etc.).

Other properties may also be determined far a hosted media item. Suchproperties may include properties of an uploader of the hosted mediaitem, properties of viewership of the hosted media item, and/or otherinformation.

In one embodiment, the claimed media item is a song, and the hostedmedia item includes the song and a video. One of the properties of thehosted media item is data about the video. For example, the video may beidentified, and may be of a nature that is disagreeable to the rightsholder of the claimed media item. In one example, the hosted media itemmay be a political advertisement that the song has been attached to.

In one embodiment, a machine learning model processes the audio portionof the hosted media item (e.g., a feature vector of the audio portionsof the hosted media item) to transcribe the audio portion of the hostedmedia item. The transcription may then be compared to a data store(e.g., a database) of lyrics of claimed media items to determine if thelyrics in the hosted media item correspond to lyrics in the claimedmedia item.

At block 1358, processing logic sends an inquiry to the rights holderasking if the same action (e.g., rights claim or takedown) that wasapplied to the first hosted media item should also be applied for otherhosted media items that incorporate the claimed media item and thatshare similar properties to the first hosted media item, At block 1360,processing logic receives a response indicating that the action is to beperformed on hosted media items that comprise the claimed media item andsharing one or more specified properties with the hosted media item. Therights holder may indicate the specific properties that they dislike.

At block 1310, processing logic determines other hosted media items thatalso incorporate the claimed media item and that also include the one ormore specified properties. The other hosted media items may have theirproperties identified in the same manner as described above for thefirst hosted media item. Each of the properties of the other hostedmedia items may have been determined beforehand, and entries in a hostedmedia item data store may indicate the various properties of the hostedmedia item. Accordingly, processing logic may determine which hostedmedia items incorporate the claimed media item and share the one or morespecified properties. Each entry further includes a unique hosted mediaitem ID and an indicator of a media sharing platform hosting theassociated hosted media item.

At block 1364, processing logic automatically sends notices to each ofthe media sharing platforms hosting the identified hosted media itemsregarding actions to perform for the hosted media items. The notices mayinclude unique IDs used by the media sharing platforms to identify thehosted media items. The media sharing platforms may then takeappropriate action. For example, processing logic may send takedownnotices to the media sharing platforms hosting each of the other coversof the claimed media item,

FIG. 14 is a flow diagram illustrating a method 1400 for reportingtailored information to different OSPs and rights holders, according toan embodiment. At block 1452 of method 1400, processing logic gathersfirst information on first views of a first plurality of hosted mediaitems hosted by a first media sharing platform. The first informationmay additionally include information on additional content shown withthe first plurality of hosted media items (e.g., advertisements shownwith the plurality of hosted media items) and/or resources (e.g.,revenues) generated in association with each of the first plurality ofhosted media items. The resources (e.g., revenues) may be fromadvertisements, from subscriptions, from pay per view models, and so on.At block 1454, processing logic gathers second information on secondviews of a second plurality of hosted media items hosted by a secondmedia sharing platform. The first information may additionally includeinformation on additional content shown with the first plurality ofhosted media items (e.g., advertisements shown with the plurality ofhosted media items) and/or resources (e.g., revenues) generated inassociation with each of the first plurality of hosted media items. Theresources (e.g., revenues) may be from advertisements, fromsubscriptions, from pay per view models, and so on. Processing logic mayadditionally receive first information on additional views of additionalpluralities of hosted media items hosted by other media sharingplatforms. At block 1456, processing logic aggregates the first andsecond information (and possibly further information from other mediasharing platforms) into aggregated information.

At block 1458, processing logic determines a first subset of theaggregated information from the first and second information (andpossibly additional information) for the first rights holder. Each ofthe hosted media items on each of the media sharing platforms may beassociated with entries in a hosted media data store. Each hosted mediaitem may have been analyzed to determine claimed media itemsincorporated into those hosted media items. Each claimed media item isassociated with one or more rights holders. Accordingly, for each rightsholder, processing logic may determine which of the hosted media itemsincorporates a claimed media item to which that rights holder has arights claim. Processing logic may then determine the number of views ofeach of those hosted media items as well as resources (e.g., revenues)generated by each of the hosted media items that are allocable to thatrights holder based on their rights claim. All of this information maybe combined into the first subset of the aggregated information.

At block 1460, processing logic generates a first aggregated report forthe first rights holder based on the first subset of the aggregatedinformation. The first aggregated report may identify the views ofhosted media items comprising claimed media items belonging to the firstrights holder on each of the media sharing platforms, the revenues dueto the first rights holder from each of the media sharing platforms, andso on. The aggregated report is advantageous for the rights holder inthat it provides a single interface that may show the statistics ofclaimed media items associated with hosted media items on many differentmedia sharing platforms. The data associated with each media sharingplatform may have a same format as the data associated with each of theother media sharing platforms. This may make it much easier for a rightsholder to compare the performance of their claimed media items portfolioon each of the media sharing platforms.

At block 1462, processing logic determines a second subset of theaggregated information from the first and second information (andpossibly additional information) for the second rights holder. At block1464, processing logic generates a second aggregated report for thesecond rights holder based on the second subset of the aggregatedinformation. The second aggregated report may identify the views ofhosted media items comprising claimed media items belonging to thesecond rights holder on each of the media sharing platforms, therevenues due to the second rights holder from each of the media sharingplatforms, and so on.

At block 1470, processing logic generates a third report for the firstmedia sharing platform based on the first information. The third reportmay show a breakdown of the revenues due to each of the rights holdersthat hold rights to claimed media items incorporated into the hostedmedia items that are hosted by the first media sharing platform.

At block 1475, processing logic generates a fourth report for the secondmedia sharing platform based on the second information. The fourthreport may show a breakdown of the revenues due to each of the rightsholders that hold rights to claimed media items incorporated into thehosted media items that are hosted by the second media sharing platform.

At block 1480, processing logic may determine a third subset of theaggregated information for an owner of a music synchronization license.An owner of a music synchronization license may collect the royalties ofrevenues generated by views of the hosted media items to which the musicsynchronization license applies rather than the rights holders of thevarious rights to the claimed media item incorporated into the hostedmedia item because the owner of the music synchronization licensepurchased all of the rights for the combination of the claimed mediaitem with another media item (which together constitute the hosted mediaitem). At block 1485, processing logic may generate a fifth report forthe owner of the music synchronization license.

FIG. 15 is a flow diagram illustrating a method 1500 for deliveringcontent to media sharing platforms, according to an embodiment. At block1502 of method 1500, processing logic receives content optionallycomprising a target profile and one or more rates, where each rate isassociated with a different threshold number of views. For example,processing logic may receive content along with with a first rate of$0.01 per view associated with a 1000 view threshold, a second rate of$0.02 per view associated with a 10,000 view threshold and a third rateof $4.05 per view associated with a 100,000 view threshold.

At block 1504, processing logic determines, for each media sharingplatform, a number of views of hosted media items meeting the targetprofile over a time period. At block 1506, processing logic determinesthat the number of views of some or all of the media sharing platformsindividually fail to meet a threshold number of views. For example,processing logic may determine that the number of views meet a firstview threshold, but not a higher second or third view threshold. Atblock 1508, processing logic computes an aggregate number of views basedon combining the numbers of views of each of the media sharingplatforms. At block 1510, processing logic determines that the aggregatenumber of views meets or exceeds the threshold number of views. Forexample, processing logic may determine that in the aggregate the viewson a first media sharing platform, a second media sharing platform and athird media sharing platform meet or exceed a highest view thresholdthat is associated with a highest revenue rate, At block 1512,processing logic determines a rate associated with the threshold numberof views. At block 1514, processing logic then applies the determinedrate for content displayed with hosted media items on the plurality ofmedia sharing platforms that meet the target profile. Alternatively,method 1500 may be performed based on total number of views generallyrather than total number of views that meet a target profile.

FIG. 16 is a flow diagram illustrating another method 1600 fordelivering content to media sharing platforms, according to anembodiment. At block 1602 of method 1600, processing logic receives acontent request from a first media sharing platform. The content requestincludes a first unique ID associated with a hosted media item to beviewed. At block 1604, processing logic determines one or moreproperties of the hosted media item. Example properties of the hostedmedia item include a demographic group associated with the hosted mediaitem (e.g., a demographic group of viewers of the hosted media item),one or more claimed media items included in the hosted media item, acategory of the hosted media item, and so on. At block 1606, processinglogic determines content targeting the one or more properties of thehosted media item. At block 1608, processing logic determines that afirst rate (e.g., a first revenue per view) based on aggregated viewsacross the media sharing platform and other media sharing platforms ishigher than a second rate that the media sharing platform can obtain onits own.

At block 1610, processing logic sends a response to the first mediasharing platform, the response comprising a link to the content.Alternatively, processing logic may send the content itself to the firstmedia sharing platform. At block 1612, processing logic may receive acall to the content via the link from a requestor. The call may bereceived from the media sharing platform or may come directly from acomputing device of an individual that has requested to view the host3edmedia item. At block 1614, processing logic sends the content to therequestor, where the content is shown in association with a hosted mediaitem hosted by the first media sharing platform.

FIG. 17 illustrates a diagrammatic representation of a machine in theexemplary form of a computing device 1700 within which a set ofinstructions, for causing the machine to perform any one or more of themethodologies discussed herein, may be executed. In alternativeembodiments, the machine may be connected (e.g., networked) to othermachines in a LAN, an intranet, an extranet, or the Internet. Themachine may operate in the capacity of a server machine in client-servernetwork environment. The machine may be a personal computer (PC), aset-top box (STB), a server computing device, a network router, switchor bridge, or any machine capable of executing a set of instructions(sequential or otherwise) that specify actions to be taken by thatmachine. Further, while only a single machine is illustrated, the term“machine” shall also be taken to include any collection of machines thatindividually or jointly execute a set (or multiple sets) of instructionsto perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein. In oneembodiment, computing device 1700 may represent server computing device150, as shown in FIG. 1.

The computing device 1700 includes a processing device (processor) 1702,a main memory 1704 (e.g., read-only memory (ROM), flash memory, dynamicrandom access memory (DRAM) such as synchronous DRAM (SDRAM)), a staticmemory 1706 (e.g., flash memory, static random access memory (SRAM)),and a data storage device 1718, which communicate with each other via abus 1730.

Processing device 1702 represents one or more general-purpose processingdevices such as a microprocessor, central processing unit, or the like.More particularly, the processing device 1702 may be a complexinstruction set computing (CISC) microprocessor, reduced instruction setcomputing (RISC) microprocessor, very long instruction word (VLIW)microprocessor, or a processor implementing other instruction sets orprocessors implementing a combination of instruction sets. Theprocessing device 1702 may also be one or more special-purposeprocessing devices such as an application specific integrated circuit(ASIC), a field programmable gate array (FPGA), a digital signalprocessor (DSP), network processor, or the like. The processing device1702 is configured to execute the aggregated media rights platform 170for performing the operations and steps discussed herein.

The computing device 1700 may further include a network interface device1708. The computing device 1700 also may include a video display unit1710 (e.g., a liquid crystal display (LCD) or a cathode ray tube (CRT)),an alphanumeric input device 1712 (e.g., a keyboard), a cursor controldevice 1714 (e.g., a mouse), and a signal generation device 1716 (e.g.,a speaker).

The data storage device 1718 may include a computer-readable medium 1728on which is stored one or more sets of instructions 1722 (e.g.,instructions of cover identification controller 200) embodying any oneor more of the methodologies or functions described herein. Theinstructions 1722 may also reside, completely or at least partially,within the main memory 1704 and/or within processing logic 1726 of theprocessing device 1702 during execution thereof by the computer system1700, the main memory 1704 and the processing device 1702 alsoconstituting computer-readable media.

While the computer-readable storage medium 1728 is shown in an exemplaryembodiment to be a single medium, the term “computer-readable storagemedium” should be taken to include a single medium or multiple media(e.g., a centralized or distributed database, and/or associated cachesand servers) that store the one or more sets of instructions. The term“computer-readable storage medium” shall also be taken to include anymedium that is capable of storing or encoding a set of instructions forexecution by the machine and that cause the machine to perform any oneor more of the methodologies of the present disclosure. The term“computer-readable storage medium” shall accordingly be taken toinclude, but not be limited to, solid-state memories, optical media, andmagnetic media.

The preceding description sets forth numerous specific details such asexamples of specific systems, components, methods, and so forth, inorder to provide a good understanding of several embodiments of thepresent disclosure. It will be apparent to one skilled in the art,however, that at least some embodiments of the present disclosure may bepracticed without these specific details. In other instances, well-knowncomponents or methods are not described in detail or are presented insimple block diagram format in order to avoid unnecessarily obscuringthe present disclosure. Thus, the specific details set forth are merelyexemplary. Particular implementations may vary from these exemplarydetails and still be contemplated to be within the scope of the presentdisclosure.

In the above description, numerous details are set forth. It will beapparent, however, to one of ordinary skill in the art having thebenefit of this disclosure, that embodiments of the disclosure may bepracticed without these specific details. In some instances, well-knownstructures and devices are shown in block diagram form, rather than indetail, in order to avoid obscuring the description.

Some portions of the detailed description are presented in terms ofalgorithms and symbolic representations of operations on data bitswithin a computer memory. These algorithmic descriptions andrepresentations are the means used by those skilled in the dataprocessing arts to most effectively convey the substance of their workto others skilled in the art. An algorithm is here, and generally,conceived to be a self-consistent sequence of steps leading to a desiredresult. The steps are those requiring physical manipulations of physicalquantities. Usually, though not necessarily, these quantities take theform of electrical or magnetic signals capable of being stored,transferred, combined, compared, and otherwise manipulated. It hasproven convenient at times, principally for reasons of common usage, torefer to these signals as bits, values, elements, symbols, characters,terms, numbers, or the like.

It should be borne in mind, however, that all of these and similar termsare to be associated with the appropriate physical quantities and aremerely convenient labels applied to these quantities. Unlessspecifically stated otherwise as apparent from the above discussion, itis appreciated that throughout the description, discussions utilizingterms such as “determining”, “receiving”, “generating”, “comparing” orthe like, refer to the actions and processes of a computer system, orsimilar electronic computing device, that manipulates and transformsdata represented as physical (e.g., electronic) quantities within thecomputer system's registers and memories into other data similarlyrepresented as physical quantities within the computer system memoriesor registers or other such information storage, transmission or displaydevices.

Embodiments of the disclosure also relate to an apparatus for performingthe operations herein. This apparatus may be specially constructed forthe required purposes, or it may comprise a general purpose computerselectively activated or reconfigured by a computer program stored inthe computer. Such a computer program may be stored in a computerreadable storage medium, such as, but not limited to, any type of diskincluding floppy disks, optical disks, CO-ROMs, and magnetic-opticaldisks, read-only memories (ROMs), random access memories (RAMS), EPROMs,EEPROMs, magnetic or optical cards, or any type of media suitable forstoring electronic instructions.

The algorithms and displays presented herein are not inherently relatedto any particular computer or other apparatus. Various general purposesystems may be used with programs in accordance with the teachingsherein, or it may prove convenient to construct a more specializedapparatus to perform the required method steps. In addition, embodimentsof the present disclosure are not described with reference to anyparticular programming language. It will be appreciated that a varietyof programming languages may be used to implement the teachings of thedisclosure as described herein.

It is to be understood that the above description is intended to beillustrative, and not restrictive. Many other embodiments will beapparent to those of skill in the art upon reading and understanding theabove description. The scope of the disclosure should, therefore, bedetermined with reference to the appended claims, along with the fullscope of equivalents to which such claims are entitled.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method comprising: receiving a request to claimownership of a first hosted media item on a first media sharingplatform, wherein the request is received from a rights holder thatholds one or more rights to a claimed media item that is at leastpartially incorporated into the first hosted media item that is hostedby the first media sharing platform; adding an indicator of theownership of the rights holder to a first entry for the first hostedmedia item in a data store; determining that a second hosted media itemhaving a threshold similarity to the first hosted media item is hostedby a second media sharing platform; and automatically adding anindicator of the ownership of the rights holder to a second entry forthe second hosted media item without receiving a separate request toclaim ownership of the second hosted media item.
 2. The method of claim1, further comprising: receiving a request from the rights holder toblock access to the first hosted media item on the first media sharingplatform; causing the first media sharing platform to block access tothe first hosted media item, and automatically causing the second mediasharing platform to block access to the second hosted media item.
 3. Themethod of claim 2, farther comprising: causing the first media sharingplatform to remove the first hosted media item from the first mediasharing platform; and automatically causing the second media sharingplatform to remove the second hosted media item from the second mediasharing platform.
 4. The method of claim 2, wherein the requestcomprises instructions to block access to all hosted media itemscomprising at least portions of the claimed media item that share acategory with the first hosted media item, the method furthercomprising: determining a plurality of additional hosted media itemsthat also contain at least a portion of the claimed media item, whereineach of the plurality of additional hosted media items is hosted by oneof a plurality of media sharing platforms, and wherein the second hostedmedia item is one of the plurality of additional hosted media items;determining the category of the first hosted media item; determining acategory of the each of the plurality of additional hosted media items;and determining that the category of the second hosted media itemmatches the category of the first hosted media item.
 5. The method ofclaim 1, further comprising: receiving a request from the rights holderto block access to the first hosted media item on the first mediasharing platform; causing the first media sharing platform to perform atleast one of muting the first hosted media item or replacing audio ofthe first hosted media item; and automatically causing the second mediasharing platform to perform at least one of muting the second hostedmedia item or replacing audio of the second hosted media item.
 6. Themethod of claim 1, further comprising: determining a first amount ofresources due to the rights holder based on the first hosted media itemon the first media sharing platform; determining a second amount ofresources due to the rights holder based on the second hosted media itemon the second media sharing platform; aggregating the first amount ofresources and the second amount of resources; and providing an aggregateof the first amount of resources and the second amount of resources tothe rights holder.
 7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:receiving at least one of a) the first hosted media item or b) at leastone of a first digital fingerprint of audio data of the first hostedmedia item or a second digital fingerprint of video data of the firsthosted media item from the first media sharing platform; generating atleast one of the first digital fingerprint from the audio data of thefirst hosted media item or the second digital fingerprint from the videodata of the first hosted media item if the at least one of the firstdigital fingerprint or the second digital fingerprint were not received;generating the first entry for the first hosted media item in the datastore, the first entry comprising at least one of the first digitalfingerprint or the second digital fingerprint; receiving at least one ofa) the second hosted media item or b) at least one of a third digitalfingerprint of audio data of the second hosted media item or a fourthdigital fingerprint of video data of the second hosted media item fromthe second media sharing platform; generating at least one of the thirddigital fingerprint from the audio data of the second hosted media itemor the fourth digital fingerprint from the video data of the secondhosted media item if the at least one of the third digital fingerprintor the fourth digital fingerprint were not received; generating thesecond entry for the second hosted media item in the data store, thesecond entry comprising at least one of the third digital fingerprint orthe fourth digital fingerprint; and determining that the second hostedmedia item has the threshold similarity to the first hosted media itemby at least one of: a) identifying a match between the first digitalfingerprint and the third digital fingerprint or b) identifying a matchbetween the second digital fingerprint and the fourth digitalfingerprint.
 8. The method of claim 7, wherein the claimed media item isan audio recording, wherein the first hosted media item comprises atleast a first portion of the audio recording and at least a firstportion of a video, and wherein the second hosted media item comprisesat least a second portion of the audio recording and at least a secondportion of the video, the method further comprising: receiving at leastone of the claimed media item or a fifth digital fingerprint of theaudio recording; generating the fifth digital fingerprint of the audiorecording if the fifth digital fingerprint was not received; determiningthat the first digital fingerprint matches the fifth digitalfingerprint; determining that the first hosted media item comprises atleast the first portion of the audio recording based on the firstdigital fingerprint matching the fifth digital fingerprint; determiningthat the third digital fingerprint matches the fifth digitalfingerprint; determining that the second hosted media item comprises atleast the second portion of the audio recording based on the thirddigital fingerprint matching the fifth digital fingerprint; responsiveto determining that both the first hosted media item and the secondhosted media item comprise portions of the claimed media item, comparingthe second digital fingerprint to the fourth digital fingerprint; anddetermining that at least a first portion of the second digitalfingerprint of at least the first portion of the video matches at leasta first portion of the fourth digital fingerprint of at least the secondportion of the video.
 9. The method of claim 7, wherein the determiningthat the second hosted media item has the threshold similarity to thefirst hosted media item is performed prior to receiving the request toclaim ownership of the first hosted media item.
 10. The method of claim1, further comprising: determining a plurality of additional hostedmedia items that also contain at least a portion of the claimed mediaitem, wherein each of the plurality of additional hosted media items ishosted by one of a plurality of media sharing platforms, and wherein thesecond hosted media item is one of the plurality of additional hostedmedia items; comparing a digital fingerprint of the first hosted mediaitem to digital fingerprints of the plurality of additional hosted mediaitems; and determining that the second hosted media item has thethreshold similarity to the first hosted media item based on determiningthat the digital fingerprint of the first hosted media item matches adigital fingerprint of the second hosted media item.
 11. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the claimed media item is a recording of a performanceof a song, the method further comprising: determining that the firsthosted media item comprises a cover of the song; and determining thatthe second hosted media item comprises an additional cover of the song.12. The method of claim 1, wherein the claimed media item is a recordingof a performance of a song, the method further comprising: determininglyrics of the song; processing the second hosted media item, using atrained machine learning model to generate a transcription of the secondhosted media item; and determining that the transcription of the secondhosted media item comprises the lyrics of the song.
 13. A methodcomprising: receiving at least one of a) a first hosted media item or b)a first digital fingerprint of the first hosted media item from a firstmedia sharing platform, wherein the first hosted media item isassociated with a first user account on the first media sharingplatform; generating a first digital fingerprint of at least one ofaudio data of the first hosted media item or video data of the firsthosted media item if the first digital fingerprint was not received;generating a first entry for the first hosted media item in a datastore, the first entry comprising an indication of the first mediasharing platform, an indication of the first user account, and the firstdigital fingerprint; receiving at least one of a) a second hosted mediaitem or b) a second digital fingerprint of the second hosted media itemfrom a second media sharing platform, wherein the second hosted mediaitem is associated with a second user account on the second mediasharing platform; generating a second digital fingerprint of at leastone of audio data of the second hosted media item or video data of thesecond hosted media item if the second digital fingerprint was notreceived; determining that the second digital fingerprint has at least athreshold similarity to the first digital fingerprint; determining thatthe second hosted media item is a copy of the first hosted media item;and determining correct ownership of the second hosted media item. 14.The method of claim 13, further comprising: determining that the seconduser account is not associated with the first user account; determininga third user account on the second media sharing platform that isassociated with the first user account on the first media sharingplatform; generating a second entry for the second hosted media item inthe data store, the second entry comprising an indication of the secondmedia sharing platform, an indication of the third user account, and thesecond digital fingerprint; and attributing ownership of the secondhosted media item to the third user account rather than to the seconduser account.
 15. The method of claim 14, further comprising: receivinga request to link the first user account on the first media sharingplatform with the third user account on the second media sharingplatform; and linking the first user account with the third useraccount.
 16. The method of claim 13, further comprising: determiningthat the second user account is not associated with the first useraccount; and causing access to the second hosted media item on thesecond media sharing platform to be blocked.
 17. The method of claim 13,further comprising: determining that the first user account is linked toa fourth user account on a third media sharing platform; automaticallyuploading the first hosted media item to the third media sharingplatform using the fourth user account; and generating a third entry forthe first hosted media item in the data store, the third entrycomprising an indication of the third media sharing platform, anindication of the fourth user account, and the first digitalfingerprint.
 18. A computing device comprising: a memory; and aprocessing device operatively coupled to the memory, the processingdevice to: receive, from a first media sharing platform, at least one ofa first hosted media item or a first digital fingerprint of the firsthosted media item; generate a first digital fingerprint of at least oneof audio data of the first hosted media item or video data of the firsthosted media item if the first digital fingerprint was not received;generate a first entry for the first hosted media item in a data store,the first entry comprising an indication of the first media sharingplatform and the first digital fingerprint; compare the first digitalfingerprint of the first hosted media item to digital fingerprints of aplurality of other hosted media items hosted by a plurality of mediasharing platforms; determine that the first digital fingerprint has atleast a threshold similarity to a second digital fingerprint associatedwith a second hosted media item hosted by a second media sharingplatform of the plurality of media sharing platforms; and determine thatthe first hosted media item is a copy of the second hosted media item.19. The computing device of claim 18, wherein the processing device isfurther to: compare the first digital fingerprint of the first hostedmedia item to digital fingerprints of a plurality of known claimed mediaitems; determine that the first digital fingerprint has a thresholdsimilarity to a third digital fingerprint of a known claimed media item;determine that the first hosted media item comprises at least a portionof the known claimed media item; and add an indication in the firstentry that the first hosted media item comprises at least the portion ofthe known claimed media item.
 20. The computing device of claim 19,wherein the processing device is further to: determine a plurality ofadditional hosted media items that also comprise at least a portion ofthe known claimed media item, wherein the first digital fingerprint iscompared to digital fingerprints of the plurality of additional hostedmedia items that also comprise at least a portion of the known claimedmedia item.
 21. The computing device of claim 18, wherein the processingdevice is further to: receive a request to claim ownership of the firsthosted media item on the first media sharing platform, wherein therequest is received from a rights holder that holds one or more rightsto a claimed media item that is at least partially incorporated into thefirst hosted media item; add an indicator of the ownership of the rightsholder to the first entry for the first hosted media item in the datastore; and automatically add an indicator of the ownership of the rightsholder to a second entry for the second hosted media item withoutreceiving a separate request to claim ownership of the second hostedmedia item.
 22. The computing device of claim 21, wherein the processingdevice is further to: receive a request from the rights holder to blockaccess to the first hosted media item on the first media sharingplatform; cause the first media sharing platform to block access to thefirst hosted media item; and automatically cause the second mediasharing platform to block access to the second hosted media item. 23.The computing device of claim 21, wherein the processing device isfurther to: receive a request from the rights holder to remove the firsthosted media item from the first media sharing platform; cause the firstmedia sharing platform to remove the first hosted media item from thefirst media sharing platform; and automatically cause the second mediasharing platform to remove the second hosted media item from the secondmedia sharing platform.